Aug 17, 2026
Aug 17, 2026
Rs.45,000 Paid. Four Semesters Completed. Eight Years Lost
When a university demands accountability from its students, who demands accountability from the university?
What happens when a student pays the entire course fee, attends the programme, passes examinations, submits assignments and waits for the university to do the one thing that only the university can do—complete the evaluation process and issue the certificate?
What happens when years pass?
What happens when emails, representations, payment proofs, marks sheets and reminders disappear into an administrative black hole?
What happens when the student is suddenly shown as “discontinued”, even though he neither discontinued the course nor withdrew from it?
And, perhaps most importantly, who holds a university accountable when the institution that teaches law, justice, procedure and due process appears unwilling to apply those very principles to one of its own students?
These are no longer abstract questions for me. They are questions I have been living with for years.
My experience with the West Bengal National University of Juridical Sciences (WBNUJS/NUJS) has forced me to confront an uncomfortable paradox: an institution established to teach law can itself become the source of a prolonged struggle for procedural fairness, transparency and accountability.
I enrolled in the Master of Arts in Business Laws (MABL) programme of the School of Distance and Mass Education in the October 2016 batch, specialising in Intellectual Property and Cyber Law.
My Enrollment Number is NUJS/SDME/MABL/OCT/0020/2016. I paid the entire course fee of Rs.45,000 to the University's MBL account in May 2016 through two bank transactions—Rs.25,000 and Rs.20,000.
There was no balance payable. There was no fee dispute. There was no abandonment of the programme from my side. Yet, eight years after the academic process should have reached its logical conclusion, I am still fighting for something that should never have required a fight in the first place: My certificate.
When Education Becomes an Administrative Labyrinth
A university-student relationship is built on a simple compact. The student must pay the prescribed fee, fulfil academic requirements, submit assignments, take examinations and satisfy the standards prescribed by the institution.
The university, in return, must teach, evaluate, maintain accurate records, communicate decisions transparently and award the appropriate academic credential when the requirements are fulfilled. The obligations cannot operate only in one direction.
A university cannot insist upon punctuality from students while treating years of institutional delay as routine. It cannot demand accurate answers in examinations while maintaining inaccurate student records. It cannot teach principles of natural justice while allegedly classifying a student as “discontinued” without first communicating the basis for doing so. And it cannot preach accountability while refusing to explain its own actions.
My academic record makes the situation even more troubling. Semesters 1, 2 and 3 were evaluated by the University, and I passed every subject. My recorded marks included scores such as 87 in Commercial Contract Drafting and Negotiation, 91.5 in IP Law, IT Law and Management, 89 in Patent Law and Business Strategy, and 83.25 in Employment Law and HR Practices in the IT Industry.
These are not assertions reconstructed from memory. They form part of the academic record referred to in my representation.
Then came Semester 4. I appeared for the Final Assessment Tests in all three Semester-4 subjects and passed them:
Laws of e-Commerce, Online Payment & Encryptions — 64/70
Monetizing Intellectual Property & Documentation — 54/70
Outsourcing Law, Cloud Computing & Data Protection — 40/70
I also state in my representation that the prescribed Writing Assignments and Subjective Exercises for these subjects were submitted during 2018–2019. And this is where the academic process appears to have entered a state of suspended animation. Those assignments, according to my records and representations, remain unevaluated.
Not for a few weeks. Not for a semester. Not even for a year. For years!
A Student Cannot Be Punished for an Institution’s Failure to Evaluate
This is the most disturbing aspect of the entire episode.
If a student fails to submit an assignment, the consequence can legitimately fall upon the student. But what happens when the student submits the assignment and the institution fails to evaluate it? Can the institution's own failure subsequently become the reason for withholding the student's qualification? That would create one of the strangest forms of administrative injustice imaginable.
The institution creates the deficiency. The institution leaves the deficiency unresolved. The deficiency then becomes the justification for denying relief to the student. It is the bureaucratic equivalent of locking a door, keeping the key and then blaming the person outside for failing to enter.
If my assignments were received, they should have been evaluated. If they were not received, I should have been informed. If they were misplaced, the University should explain what happened. If records were lost, the loss should be acknowledged and an equitable academic remedy devised.
What cannot be acceptable is indefinite silence.
An institution entrusted with young people's academic futures cannot simply allow student work to vanish into an administrative fog and then behave as though the resulting consequences belong exclusively to the student. That is not merely an issue of efficiency. It raises serious questions of institutional responsibility.
Then I Discovered I Had Apparently Been “Discontinued”
The situation became still more perplexing when my name appeared in a list relating to discontinued or withdrawn students.
I had never withdrawn. I had never asked to discontinue the programme. I had never sought a refund. I had paid the full fee. I had taken the examinations. I had submitted the academic work required of me. How, then, did I become a “discontinued” student? Who made that decision? Under what rule? On what date? Based on which document? Was any notice issued to me? Was I asked for an explanation? Was I given an opportunity to challenge the classification?
These are not technical questions. They go to the heart of administrative fairness.
A university record is not a casual spreadsheet. It can determine careers, admissions, promotions, employment opportunities and professional credibility. One incorrect entry can follow a student for years. This is precisely why academic record-keeping must be treated with extraordinary care.
An Enrollment Number That Does Not Match
There is another anomaly that I have repeatedly sought to have explained. The Student ID appearing against my name in the discontinued list does not match my actual University Enrollment Number: NUJS/SDME/MABL/OCT/0020/2016.
That number appears on my academic records. How, then, did a different identification enter another University record associated with my name?
I am careful about the distinction here. An incorrect record does not, by itself, establish why it became incorrect. It could be a clerical mistake. It could reflect defective record migration. It could indicate serious administrative negligence. Or there may be some other explanation known only to the University. But that is precisely the point.
Where there is an unexplained discrepancy in an official academic record, transparency is not optional. The institution must explain it. Instead, despite my repeated communications, I have been left asking the same question: why has such a basic discrepancy remained unresolved?
Errors happen. That is human. Refusing to correct an error after it has repeatedly been brought to one's attention is something altogether different.
The High Court Judgment That Should Have Ended the Uncertainty
There is an even larger legal context surrounding students of these programmes.
In 2022, the Division Bench of the Calcutta High Court delivered its judgment in Abhisek Panda & Ors. v. WBNUJS & Ors., arising from MAT 479 of 2019.
As recorded in my representation, the Court addressed the position of students who had enrolled in the programmes before their discontinuation. The judgment recognized the serious inequity that would result if students who had enrolled relying upon the representations of a premier national law university were subsequently deprived of their academic outcomes because of regulatory issues surrounding the programme.
The Court directed that students falling within the protected category be permitted to complete their courses and, upon successful completion, receive the relevant academic awards, with the regulatory position addressed in the manner specified by the Court.
For students like me, this judgment should have brought clarity. Instead, four more years have elapsed since that judgment. I enrolled in 2016. My academic work was undertaken years before the judgment. Yet I continue to seek completion of the administrative and academic process. This raises a question larger than my individual certificate: What is the value of judicial protection if administrative inertia can quietly outlive it?
A court judgment should not become a beautifully worded document preserved in a legal database while the people for whose benefit it operates continue knocking on institutional doors. Justice delayed by litigation is painful. Justice delayed even after litigation has clarified the legal position is more troubling still.
Ten Communications and the Architecture of Silence
Perhaps the most frustrating part of my experience has not merely been the delay.
It has been the silence. Beginning in December 2023 and continuing through numerous communications in 2025 and 2026, I repeatedly approached the University seeking evaluation, correction of records and issuance of the appropriate certificate.
My representation records communications dated, among others, 6 August 2025, 21 August 2025, 4 October 2025, 19 April 2026, 10 May 2026, 13 May 2026, 7 August 2026, 8 August 2026 and 17 August 2026.
Payment proofs were also furnished to the Verification Committee, with their receipt acknowledged in May 2026. Yet, according to the chronology set out in my representation, I received no substantive resolution of the fundamental issues. This is where delay begins to resemble institutional indifference.
One unanswered email may be overlooked. Two may be administrative congestion. Three may indicate inefficiency. But when a citizen repeatedly supplies documents, identifies discrepancies, quotes enrollment numbers, provides payment records and seeks specific corrective action over an extended period, continued institutional silence becomes extremely difficult to defend as a mere oversight.
Silence after repeated notice is itself a form of institutional communication.
It tells the student: Your time can wait. Your documents can wait. Your career can wait. Your anxiety can wait. Our answer can wait indefinitely. That is precisely the culture that grievance-redressal mechanisms are supposed to prevent.
Universities Cannot Demand Discipline Without Practising It
Educational institutions often speak eloquently about discipline. Students are told to respect deadlines. Submit assignments on time. Pay fees before the last date. Follow examination rules. Maintain attendance. Respond to notices. Comply with procedures. Fair enough. But discipline cannot be a one-way street.
If the student must submit an assignment within seven days, why should the institution be allowed to leave that assignment unevaluated for years? If a student must respond to an official notice immediately, why should a university remain silent despite repeated written representations? If supplying incorrect information in an examination attracts penalties, what accountability attaches to incorrect information in a student's official record?
Institutions acquire moral authority not merely through statutes, reputations, buildings or rankings. They acquire it through consistency. The rules applied downward must also apply upward. Otherwise, discipline becomes hierarchy rather than principle.
Rs.45,000 is Not the Real Cost
It would be tempting to reduce this dispute to the Rs.45,000 I paid. But the monetary fee is not the most important cost. The larger cost is time.
A certificate withheld for years is not merely a sheet of paper delayed. It can mean a qualification that cannot be cited when required. A promotion opportunity that passes.
An application that cannot be completed. An academic progression that becomes complicated. A professional credential that remains unavailable exactly when it is needed.
Universities deal in something far more valuable than fees. They deal in human time.
And human time is non-refundable. A university can print a certificate tomorrow. It cannot print yesterday. It cannot return the years during which that credential remained unavailable. That is why administrative negligence in education must never be treated as a minor clerical inconvenience.
A misplaced file in an office may represent a lost opportunity in someone's life.
The Most Troubling Subject is Not Law. It is Accountability.
What troubles me most is the contradiction. NUJS is a university of juridical sciences. It is a National Law University (NLU).
Law is built upon procedure. Natural justice demands hearing. Administrative law demands reasoned action. Public institutions are expected to act fairly. Records must be accurate. Decisions affecting rights and interests should have identifiable authority behind them. Grievances should be addressed. Judicial directions deserve compliance. These are not obscure theories buried inside textbooks. They are foundational principles of lawful governance.
What lesson does an institution teach when a student has to repeatedly invoke those very principles against the institution teaching them? Sometimes the greatest examination a university faces is not conducted in an examination hall. It occurs when one student asks: “Will you apply to me the principles you teach everyone else?”
My Fight is No Longer Only About My Certificate
Yes, I want my MABL certificate. I want my academic record corrected. I want my Semester-4 academic work dealt with fairly. I want my enrollment details accurately reflected. I want a reasoned explanation of how I came to be shown as discontinued when I did not withdraw.
But my concern has gradually become larger. How many other students from these cohorts may be facing similar unresolved issues? How many have stopped writing? How many assumed that fighting a large institution was pointless? How many simply moved on because the emotional and financial cost of pursuing the matter became greater than the value of the certificate itself?
Institutional accountability cannot depend upon the persistence level of the victim of administrative failure. A student should not need the stamina of a litigant merely to obtain an academic document. That is why I have now approached the University Grants Commission and sought intervention. Not charity. Not favour. Not special treatment. Accountability.
‘Transparency’ Is the ‘Cheapest’ Remedy and Yet the ‘Rarest’
There is something deeply unnecessary about disputes like mine. They do not require sophisticated technology. They do not require massive budgets. They do not require committees studying the problem for three years.
The questions are elementary.
None of this requires administrative genius. It requires administrative willingness. And that distinction matters enormously.
From Negligence to Recklessness: When Delay Becomes Institutional Behaviour
Every institution can make a mistake. I do not expect perfection. But I do expect correction. Negligence is failing to notice a problem. Recklessness begins when the problem is repeatedly brought to one's attention and still remains unaddressed. Irresponsibility is allowing the consequences of that failure to fall upon the person who did not create it. Non-transparency is refusing to explain how decisions were made. Non-accountability is ensuring that no identifiable person or office appears responsible for rectifying them. Taken together, these behaviours create something far more damaging than administrative inconvenience. They create institutional helplessness for the individual.
The student writes to one office. The office remains silent. He writes to another. Documents are requested. Documents are supplied. Acknowledgements arrive. Action does not. Responsibility moves invisibly from desk to desk until everyone has handled the matter and apparently no one owns it. Bureaucracy then achieves its most remarkable trick: A problem exists everywhere, yet responsibility exists nowhere.
That is precisely what institutions must guard against.
The ‘Reputation’ of a University Is Tested by the Student Who Has a ‘Problem’
Great universities are not great merely because their successful alumni occupy distinguished positions. They are great because of how they treat the student whose file creates inconvenience. The student who asks difficult questions. The student whose records require reconstruction. The student who discovers an anomaly. The student who refuses to disappear quietly.
Reputation is not what an institution says about itself in a brochure. Reputation is what a student says about the institution after something goes wrong. That is the real audit.
Justice Begins With an Answer
I am not asking for an institution to bend its rules for me. I am asking it to explain and apply them.
I am not demanding marks that I did not earn. I am asking for submitted academic work to be accounted for and dealt with fairly.
I am not asking to be removed from a legitimate classification. I am asking to know how I was placed in a category that, according to my records, does not describe my academic history.
I am not seeking institutional humiliation. I am seeking institutional responsibility. There is a profound difference.
Accountability does not weaken universities. It strengthens them.
Correcting a wrong record does not diminish institutional prestige. Refusing to correct it does.
Admitting administrative failure does not destroy credibility. Pretending that the affected student does not exist does.
Final Thoughts: The Certificate Is ‘Mine’; The Accountability Is ‘Ours’
And still, I find myself asking for an academic process that should have ended years ago to be brought to a lawful and transparent conclusion.
How many reminders should a student have to send before silence itself becomes unacceptable?
How many years of delay transform an administrative lapse into institutional irresponsibility?
How can a university teach natural justice if a student believes he has been classified without notice or hearing?
Who is accountable when incorrect records remain uncorrected despite repeated representations?
And if institutions of law do not model transparency, procedural fairness and accountability, which institutions should?
My battle is certainly about a certificate. But it is also about something larger. It is about the principle that a student is not a disposable entry in an administrative database.
Behind every enrollment number is a human being. Behind every marksheet is effort. Behind every delayed certificate may be a lost opportunity. Behind every unanswered representation is a person waiting for an institution to acknowledge that he exists.
Universities have enormous power over students. With that power comes a corresponding obligation: to act carefully, transparently, promptly and fairly. Students are accountable to universities from the day they enroll. Perhaps it is time we asked a question that Indian higher education does not ask often enough:
When will universities become equally accountable to their students?
