Student had approached the court with the bizarre request after having ‘sleepless nights’ owing to a guilty conscience
The Bombay High Court on Tuesday disposed off a petition filed by a 26-year-old from Pune who claimed that his Bachelors in Engineering (BE) degree obtained from the Mumbai university was got via fraudulent means and that he has been “feeling guilty for the last four years as his conscious has been pricking him night and day, making it pointless for him to do anything”.
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Justice Shantanu Kemkar and Justice Makranand Karnik disposed off the petition after university counsel Rui Rodrigues told the bench that there was no provision in the Maharashtra University Act to surrender a degree but there was one to revoke a degree.
The bench also observed that the claims made by Vaibhav Patil were very bold but lacked substantial evidence. “He had claimed that he paid Rs 20,000 to a friend, who had ensured that he passed Patil in the revaluation, but we checked and he passed only because he had secured the marks,” said Rodrigues.
Paid money to pass
In 2014, Patil had approached the HC, claiming that he passed in his BE exam in May 2011 only because he paid R20,000 to his friend.
Patil had also claimed that since 2011 he has been unable to sleep in peace due to the guilt.
“I have met the registrar of universities, governor, and Student Welfare Department staff and have been making the rounds of Kalina and Fort campuses since 2011 to surrender my degree, but nobody is accepting it,” said Patil, adding that his only hope had been the HC and that’s gone too.
“There is no provision to surrender a degree. Also, we checked Patil’s claim, it is not supported by any evidence. He claims he paid money to a friend to give it to a university clerk, but we think the friend himself pocketed the money, and Patil passed because he had written well, which got noticed in revaluation,” said Rodrigues. University officials asked Patil to approach a good psychiatrist, which even the court reiterated.
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