The university has been ``capricious and arbitrary in exercise of its power and this has caused a lot of harassment and agony to the complainant,'' ruled forum member Prof (Dr) Gopinath N Shenoy of the Consumer Disputes Redressal Forum, Suburban, Mumbai. ``... accountability in statutory organisations is vital especially when it is in the field of education ... the university and its employees/agents must be held liable for their acts of commission and omission with respect to the services rendered by them in the field of examinations, assessment, reassessment and the declaration of results,'' says the order.

According to complainant Rajendra N Rajpurohit, a senior government official, he enrolled for the third year Bachelor of Law course inApril 1995 at J C College of Law, Vile Parle and took four papers in May 1996. However, in his marksheet, he was marked absent in one paper, failed in two others and passed in the fourth.

A complaint with the university, said Rajpurohit, revealed that he had actually secured 42 marks in the paper for which he was marked absent. Inquiries with the Controller of Examinations revealed that his answer booklets - in Hindi - had been assessed by examiners who were not well-versed with the language. It was also found that the papers had been assessed with the help of interpreters who were not qualified for the job, alleged Rajpurohit.

Rajpurohit claimed that examiners who had neither studied nor taught law in Hindi assessed his answer booklets. The official then filed a writ petition in the Bombay High Court, and the court ordered re-assessment of his papers by examiners who were well-versed in Hindi.

Following the re-assessment, Rajpurohit was declared `passed' in all four papers. Also, the marks in twopapers were increased by 64 per cent and 85 per cent respectively. Rajpurohit then filed a complaint alleging `deficiency of service' with the forum late last year.

The forum clarified that it could not award the complainant compensation as its hands are tied, stating: ``... This is a fit case where compensation is awardable, but unfortunately several decisions of the Honorary National Commission tie our hands.'' The complainant paid the university fees to avail of services of writing/appearing for the examination, assessment of answer books and to obtain a marksheet, said the forum. The payment was made to the account of the University of Mumbai and didn't go into the Consolidated Fund. Therefore, the forum said, it could not be construed as tax.

``Such a payment ... is a fee for certain services availed by the complainant vis-a-vis the opposite parties. ... therefore, it would be most inappropriate to say that the services availed by the complainant after payment of fees/consideration are services notgoverned by the provisions of the Consumer Protection Act, 1986,'' the order stated.

Rajpurohit's appeal before State Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission was also rejected on the ground that education is the state's sovereign function and cannot be questioned by this commission. The state commission did not, however, make any comments on the forum's observations. An unperturbed Rajpurohit, who specialised on Consumer Protection Act in his third year LLB, is now headed in the direction of the National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission.