Plea against Gokhale institute's board dismissed

PUNE: The Bombay high court has dismissed a writ petition seeking the court's direction to the University Grants Commission (UGC) to set aside the board of management of the Gokhale Institute of Politics and Economics (GIPE), a deemed university here.
Petitioner M Murali Krishnan, a GIPE employee who is facing a departmental enquiry, had pleaded in his petition that the institute was functioning in violation of the UGC norms by having only one postgraduate (PG) department as against the requirement of minimum five PG departments.
On July 8, 2013, the then high court bench of Justices A S Oka and G S Patel, while disposing of a petition by Arup Maharatna and other GIPE employees, had observed that it was open to the petitioners to make an appropriate representation to the UGC regarding the legality of constitution of the GIPE management board. "If such representation is made then the UGC shall consider the same expeditiously," the court had ruled.
Citing these directions, Krishnan submitted that he made a representation to the UGC in relation to the constitution of GIPE board in violation of the commission's norms.
However, the UGC kept the representation pending and did not decide the same, prompting him to move the high court for fresh orders. Krishnan's petition was heard on March 11 by the bench of Justices Vasanti A Naik and Mrudula Bhatkar.
The bench observed, "Successive writ petitions cannot be filed for seeking the relief that already stands granted. It would not be in the interest of justice to again direct the UGC to decide the petitioner's representation especially when a departmental enquiry is pending against the petitioner and the petitioner appears to be on loggerhead with the members of the management."
"There are several disputes between the petitioner and the management of GIPE. The petitioner appears to be in the habit of making complaints against the management of the deemed university not only to the UGC but also to several public authorities and functionaries," the bench observed.
"It appears that a departmental inquiry is also pending against the petitioner and the same is in progress. So also, we find that, by a direction in an earlier petition, this court had asked the UGC to decide the application filed by the petitioner. If the UGC has not decided the application till date, the petitioner has other remedies," the bench observed.