A GNLU Gandhinagar student has won against the university administration in the Gujarat high court over what Justice ZK Saiyed termed its “wholly baseless, arbitrary, malafide, unreasonable, illegal” decision to physically frisk and persecute a student after an exam, after wrongly suspecting the student was “hiding something”, and then cancelling that student’s exam result.
The high court noted in its judgment, which was first reported by Bar & Bench, that Bimal Patel and several other staff members had made GNLU:
into an oligarchy where all decisions are taken, reviewed and implemented by a select few, and students are casually denied basic human rights and natural justice
GNLU has history
This is not GNLU’s first run-in with autocracy: in 2013 Legally India reported that a GNLU student had filed an FIR against Patel alleging caste discrimination for frisking and fining a student for carrying a cigarette packet on campus.
GNLU has also been the only established national law school to distort and hide its placement statistics, was widely panned for ‘fleecing’ Common Law Admission Test (CLAT) aspirants with a non-refundable Rs 10,000 administration charge when it was in charge of “shoddily” organising the CLAT in 2014, having made a mess of the results and answer keys.
Patel’s also saw controversy after apparently trying to bury a critical review report of the college by a committee headed by NLSIU Bangalore founder NR Madhava Menon, claiming that a third member had not produced his findings yet.
When those findings were eventually produced, Patel called a press conference and claimed they were all positive, and his term was renewed, though he did not publish a full version of those findings.
We have reached out to Bimal Patel for comment.
The facts: Student suspected of cheating, to be frisked
On 2 November 2015, five minutes before completion of an exam, faculty member and invigilator Richa Sharma “suddenly bolted from across the examination hall and snatched the answer sheet of the petitioner”, third-year student Jaymin Rajendra Brahmbatt, alleging that he was “hiding something”, according to the high court’s account of the allegation.
Brahmbatt objected being frisked by a member of the opposite gender, and nominated a male faculty member to frisk him instead to prove his innocence.
Instead, he was marched to the director Bimal Patel’s office, and his mobile phone (along with its unlocking code) were deposited with Patel.
Exam committee bars him from having lawyer present
On 7 November, he was told to appear before the exam inquiry committee at 2:30pm, of which Brahmbatt recounted that the invigilator Sharma appeared alone before the exam committee before Brahmbatt did, talking to the committee at length.
When Brahmbatt finally entered, 45 minutes after the appointed time, he was told that his advocate Gursharan H Virk was not allowed to accompany him, with the committee giving the reason: “the Director has constituted this committee and you better go to the Director and procure written permission from him if you wish to remain present during the proceedings…”.
They also refused the advocate’s request that a copy of the report of the committee be provided to him before his client would sign it.
If Brahmbatt did not cooperate, they would pass a finding ex parte, the committee threatened.
Exam committee goes on fishing expedition through his phone…
The exam committee then asked him again for the passcode to his phone, and began looking through his personal pictures, and then arranged to have all of his phone content copied to a computer. Brahmbatt did not object though questioned the legality of such a move.
They examined all his private photos on a computer monitor, and eventually found the picture that Sharma had claimed was a “photograph of certain notes of ‘Interpretation of Statutes”.
… but find nothing
However, according to Brahmbatt’s email to the administration, Sharma then “realized that the said photograph had nothing to do with the impugned issue, [and] she disappointedly returned to her normal self”, and were able to find no evidence of wrongdoing whatsoever.
Yet student’s exam results are cancelled
On 3 December, following his complaint, the exam he sat was cancelled for Brahmbatt.
But student takes them to the high court
He then appealed to the Gujarat high court against GNLU, its director Bimal Patel, the exam committee, invigilating faculty Sharma and another faculty member, to order GNLU to declare his results for the exam he took.
And wins a thumping victory
High court Justice ZK Saiyed whole-heartedly agreed in his judgment yesterday, slamming GNLU Gandhinagar unequivocally, ordering GNLU to evaluate and publish his cancelled exam results, while also making some very sharp comments (emphasis added below):
27. It is true that this Court would generally not interfere in academic matters of universities, unless, of course, exceptional circumstances persuaded the conscience of this Court to undo grave and irreparable injustice. Even in such matters, this Court would be slow in undoing a university’s decision unless, as is the fact in the present case, the decision of the university is wholly baseless, arbitrary, malafide, unreasonable, illegal and in stark contradiction to the principles of natural justice.
The facts of the present case coupled with the law laid down by the Hon’ble Supreme Court as also this Court, has constrained this Court to interfere in the present matter.
All universities are cradles of the nation’s future. They are, therefore, required to conduct all acts in a highly bona fide and exemplary manner. This responsibility increases exponentially when the university is a premier National Law School imparting legal education to the nation’s future lawyers. How is a student of law expected to be a patron of justice when his university is the epitome of injustice?
28. On consideration of arguments made by both the learned counsels for the parties and perusal of the reply filed by the Respondents and judgments cited by learned counsel for the Petitioner, for above reasons it appears that for reasons not evident on record, the Respondent Nos. 2 to 6 bypassed the Rules and the Respondent No. 2 decided to supplant himself for the authority of the Executive Council.
Therefore, it appears that the apprehension of the Petitioner that the private Respondents have made the Respondent No. 1 University into an oligarchy where all decisions are taken, reviewed and implemented by a select few, and students are casually denied basic human rights and natural justice.
29.The key question involved in the present petition, as per the perusal of the matter and in view of the observations made by the Hon’ble Apex Court, and facts involved in the present case as evident from the contentions of the e-mail of the Petitioner and the conduct of the respondents, I have found that, the impugned order dated 03.12.2015 which is against the principles of natural justice and prima facie it can be considered that decision of the Respondents is mala fide.
Hence said order dated 03.012.2015 is required to be quashed and set aside and the present writ petition is also required to be allowed in totality. Hence, petition is allowed and the Respondent No. 1 University is directed to expeditiously evaluate and declare the result of the Petitioner for the examination of “Quantitative Techniques” that was taken by the Petitioner on 02.11.2015, but no later than 2 week from the date of the receipt of the present order.
The judgment is worth reading in full below.
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www.legallyindia.com/201409235087/Law-schools/gnlu-keeps-placement-statistics-secret
Under the circumstances, one would expect certain changes to be implemented (say, certain people resigning, publishing guidelines on conducting enquiries, etc.) in light of the Hon' Gujarat High Courts judgement. But then again, this is GNLU. Business as usual it is.
As is often the case, these law schools are the product of what the students make of them. In that context, GNLU students do very well, despite an entirely illogical, unqualified, incompetent and rather peculiarly Orwellian administration. Case to the point: the Advocate appearing for the Petitioner is also a former GNLU student.
Every single word in the story above is:
1. what the honourable high court judge stated, in black and white, in his well-reasoned judgment.
2. facts that have been previously reported on, primarily by Legally India.
3. absolutely relevant context and background - this judgment and culture of GNLU did not come about out of thin air.
If we don't spell out both of those things now, when do you think these should be spelled out?
We are unable to do anything since he has influential friends. For our sake, please help by following up this story. #SaveGNLU
A few years ago, much of the student community at GNLU was cowed by the administration and worried about talking. Similar for faculty. To be honest, we kind of gave up on GNLU back then and got distracted on other stories.
But if there are any students who want to help us dig a little deeper, please call or WhatsApp me in confidence, any time: 0900 405 6651
A lot of whistleblowers from GNLU are going to come out in the open soon. Most of us in the graduating batch are still waiting for their offer letters and provisional degrees are yet to be given. We plan to wait till early August and then go all ballistic on GNLU admin headed by Bimal Patel. Though some of us shall be contacting you in a few days so that we can plan how to publish the revelations we have with us.
Still no offer letter?
What about "ballistic revelations"?
GNLU authorities frisk him for a highly likely examination malpractice and everyone loses their shit. Incredible.
1. The student petitioner in question here, Mr. Jaymin Brahmbhat, ideally should not have been in the University in the first place. His CLAT 2013 rank was 23654, (Roll No. 060110256, Marks- 33.5). [...]
With that kind of rank, it should have ideally been impossible for him to get through to any law university, even with the Gujarat Quota at GNLU. [...]
2. The student petitoner was writing the repeat of the repeat of the repeat of God knows how many repeats of the "Quantitative Techniques" stream exam. [...]
3. With regards to the use of the mobile phone in the examination, the only GOOF that the male invigilator (Respondent No. 6) who was sent to frisk the petitioner made was that he did not frisk him there and then, and took him to Dr. Bimal Patel's office. This gave the petitioner the time to tactfully cook up his story that he got his phone AFTER the exam from his bag outside the examination hall. This is evident from paragraph 5 of the judgment, which is reproduced as :
"Further, the case of the Petitioner is that upon leaving the examination hall with the Respondent Nos. 5 and 6, the Petitioner took his bag placed outside the examination hall and took his phone out of the bag to contact his father."
4. Had he frisked him in the exam hall itself, the outcome of the judgment would likely have been the opposite, as the case of violation of natural justice, as alleged, would not have arisen in the first place. The presence of a mobile phone in the exam hall itself is a cause for disqualification (Nothing to prove otherwise).
5. There certainly might have been subsequent violations of not following the due process, for which the Unviersity has been rebuked by the Hon'ble High Court.
6. It is deplorable how [...] Jaymin, are tarnishing the University for their so called "crusade" against the "corrupt" administration. GNLU as a university has the potential to be one of the best law schools in the country, and people like Jaymin are ruining it by doing such things.
Taking repeat exam is not of any relevance here, the exam rules are same for the first attempt and backlog. Casting aspersion on the student does not make a purported illegal act legal.
Frisking should always be done inside exam hall.....GNLU may consider putting CCTV inside exam halls to avoid such disputes in future.
The image of GNLU is much stronger than so called image of any Bimal, Thomas or Jaymin. GNLU has a good reputation outside and the same has been created by the hard working students and alumni. And such cases only make an institution stronger, because after judicial review the University authorities can ponder and make rules fair and reasonable. They can consider coming out with an enquiry manual which will have detailed procedures in compliance with principles of natural justice.
After all, its a 'student', don't be so harsh on them that they are forced to approach media/courts. Some other kind of reprimand like public censure or suspending hostel/library facilities for a few months can also be employed. It will be interesting to see how much more money and effort GNLU will put to appeal the decision.
Last but not the least, GNLU faculties should avoid taking everything on their ego and concentrate on coming out with good quality research papers or articles in reputed national and international journals.
Did u take classes from Bimal Patel?
-Alumnus.
As far his rank goes, it's perfectly legal. He paid through the NRI quota fees and got through. What GNLU (Read BP Squad) is doing and has been doing is downright deplorable and extreme levels of arbitrariness, have been shown. Quoting the judgment
“All universities are cradles of the nation’s future. They are, therefore, required to conduct all acts in a highly bona fide and exemplary manner. This responsibility increases exponentially when the university is a premier National Law School imparting legal education to the nation’s future lawyers. How is a student of law expected to be a patron of justice when his university is the epitome of injustice?”
Your only concern is about your goddamn placements and you don't care two hoots about this place other than that. REST ASSURED, we have some brilliant alumnus who'll guarantee that to you. Peace OUT.
ASHAMED BATCHMATE (...)
Why are you even commenting here when you don't understand two hoots about this case and the prevailing situation in GNLU at large?!
There is no damn technicality involved in this case which led the court to come down so heavily on Bimal Patel and his coterie of incompetent jerks (aka Bimpa Squad or BS). These people are not just evil (because their brains always come up with anti-student measures by default). They are stupid and incompetent by elephantine proportions. Not following principles of natural justice, despite the fact that they came out with new GNLU Regulations in 2015, is simply an illustration of the impunity with which these people take decisions everyday. They live under the facade that hundreds of graduating students, that they royally piss off over five years, won't come back to bite them after they graduate. It may be true to some extent because most people move on with their lives. But not this time Bimal N Patel. A storm is coming very soon and it'll blow all the filth that you have accumulated in GNLU during your tenure. Yes, I'm not just talking about appointment of unqualified faculty or Bimal's wife n niece being on GNLU payrolls or the large chunks of our money that Bimal have siphoned off and invested back in Anand (his hometown). There is more and it'll be out in the open... soon.
Mr. Patel is still here....
His CLAT 2013 rank was 23654, (Roll No. 060110256, Marks- 33.5.
If you carefully observe the NRI Status column in the official merit list for him, it says "NONE". This implies that he could not have been given admission under the NRI quota.
2. Perhaps (...)
3. There needs to be more transparency towards the allotment of the NRI quota seats in the University, and it should be ensured that seats are allotted as per merit, even within the NRI sub category.
4. With a rank of 23654, it ideally should not have been possible to secure a seat, even under the NRI quota.
Jai Hind!
GNLU ROCKS.PERIOD. ADMIN SUCKS. PEACE.
He's also buried the NAAC report which contained many adverse remarks against him. Investigate this. And for God sake's LLB people grow up.
- Proud LLM Alumnus.
Be the change you wish to see in the world....
~~~~~~~~~~~
ThePhantom
~~~~~~~~~~~
1) Corruption and poor governance at NLUs
2) Pathetic faculty: NLU alumni are not teaching at NLUs
3 Lack of funding: NLUs are essentially state universities
However, they were not on the website till a couple of months back! Surprise Surprise
Two of the amendments (the last two) seem to be in response to this case.
See - www.gnlu.ac.in/aad/GNLU%20Regulations-Amendment%202015-1.pdf
P.S.-- I don't remember anything taught during the legal history lessons, however, 'the' Richa 'the' Sharma shall remain an unforgettable historical figure! :P
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