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After 17 years, her gold medal gets its sparkle

JAIPUR: Seventeen years after she topped a post-graduate examination, a 63-year-old woman here has bagged a gold medal for the achievement following a long legal battle. Maharishi Dayanand Saraswati University, Ajmer, awarded her the degree and the medal earlier this month after losing the case in the Rajasthan High Court.

Shakila Bano secured the highest marks in the Master of Urdu Literature examination in 1991 after a re-evaluation of her answer book in one of the subjects. However, the university refused to recognise her first rank and rejected her request for the gold medal.

Holding back the degree, the university said its ordinance stipulated that an increase in marks obtained by a student as a result of re-evaluation would not be taken into account for preparing the merit list of candidates.

Ms. Bano had got her answer book of the subject, “Essay on literary topic”, re-evaluated in the final year of post-graduation as she was not satisfied with the result.

She appeared at the Masters degree examination as a non-collegiate student at Bikaner in 1990 and 1991 after a gap of 27 years since she did graduation in humanities.

Aggrieved by the university’s refusal to recognise her as the topper, Ms. Bano approached the Rajasthan High Court. A Single-Judge Bench, rejecting the MDS University’s arguments, directed it in July 1997 to award the gold medal to the petitioner. Justice V.K. Singhal ruled that the gold medal be given to Ms. Bano in addition to the medal awarded to the candidate who was earlier at the top in the merit list.

The university challenged the verdict through an appeal filed before a Division Bench of the High Court. After a legal battle lasting a decade, the Division Bench comprising Justice S.K. Sharma and Justice M.C. Sharma dismissed the appeal in December 2007.

The university invited Ms. Bano, accompanied by her husband and three children, to Ajmer earlier this month to confer on her the Masters degree and award the gold medal.

Ms. Bano said here on Wednesday that despite the “inordinate delay”, she was delighted to get her due finally at this age.

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