VIGILANCE MANUAL VOLUME III - AP Online

396 DECISION - 150
of the girls hostel. Later, they entered into the compound and were
found walking without clothes on them. They went near the windows
of the rooms of some girls and tried to pull the hand of one of the
girls. Some five of them climbed up along the drain pipes to the
terrace of the girls hostel where a few girls were doing their studies.
On seeing them the girls raised an alarm following which the students
ran away and the girls recognised the three appellants and another.
On receipt of a complaint from 36 girl students, a Committee of three
members of the staff appointed by the Principal conducted an inquiry.
They recorded the statements of ten girl students of the hostel behind
the back of the delinquents, which disclosed that though there were
many more students the girls could identify only four of them by name.
The Committee thereafter called the four students and explained the
contents of the complaint without disclosing the names of the girls
and obtained their explanation in which they denied the charge.
Agreeing with the findings of the Committee, the principal expelled
the four students from the college for two academic sessions.
It was contended before the Supreme Court (as earlier
unsuccessfully before the Patna High Court) that rules of natural
justice were not followed, that the enquiry, if any, had been held behind
their back, that witnesses were not examined in their presence and
they were not given opportunity to cross-examine them and the report
of the Committee was not furnished to them.
The Supreme Court observed that principles of natural justice
are not inflexible and may differ in different circumstances and that
they cannot be imprisoned within the straight jacket of rigid formula
and the application depends upon several factors. The complaint
related to an extremely serious matter involving not merely internal
discipline but the safety of the girl students living in the Hostel under
the guardianship of the college authorities. A normal inquiry is not
feasible as the girls would not have ventured to make their statements
in the presence of the miscreants thereby exposing themselves to
retaliation and harassment and the authorities had to devise a just