The Delhi High Court has stepped in to halt contempt proceedings against the Vice-Chancellor of the National University of Juridical Sciences (NUJS), Kolkata, in a long-running dispute over the award of an MA in Business Law.
A bench led by Chief Justice Devendra Kumar Upadhyaya and Justice Tushar Rao Gedela issued a notice to the petitioner, Kapil Mishra, effectively pausing the legal battle while the university challenges earlier rulings.
The case traces back to NUJS’s collaboration with iPleaders, which launched the Business Law course in 2017. Mishra enrolled, but just a year later, the university decided to suspend the program due to internal conflicts with its partner.
By 2019, Mishra was in court, demanding that NUJS grant him his degree. The High Court ruled in his favor, instructing the university to provide the necessary certification. However, NUJS later discovered discrepancies in Mishra’s documentation—records it claimed were incomplete and improperly marked.
After an unsuccessful attempt to have the ruling reviewed in 2024, NUJS took its case to the Division Bench, arguing that the degree’s legitimacy needed further scrutiny. In response, Mishra initiated contempt proceedings, accusing the university of failing to comply with court orders.
With the latest intervention, the High Court has given NUJS a temporary reprieve as it reexamines the tangled dispute over the now-defunct course.
