The students alleged that they were cheated by the institute, which disowned the course, and the police failed to act on their complaint.

A division bench comprising Justices Usha Mehra and N G Nandi earlier this week directed IIT director V S Raju, design school (Industrial Design Clinic) coordinator S K Atreya, the police commissioner and the station house officer (SHO) of the Hauz Khas police station to reply to the notices within four weeks. The judges listed the matter for further hearing on December 12.

The petition alleged that the SHO did not take action on their complaint despite specific allegations against Raju and had not registered a first information report till date.

The petition, filed through advocate Rakesh Sharma,stated that the IIT came out with an advertisement on April 9 last year, inviting applications for its, ``innovative course to be started by the design school''. The course was to be run in collaboration with industrial partners, Next Technology and Katra Technology.

Counsel for the petitioner Sarabjit Sharma alleged that the advertisement, information, folder, prospectus and media publicity were carried in the name of IIT which clearly created, ``an impression that the course was being run by the IIT''.

For the six-month course, Rs 75,000 was charged from each student and was paid in favour of ``Foundation for Technology Transfer'', IIT, Delhi, the petition stated. The classes for the course commenced on August 1.

But the courses fell short of students' expectations from the beginning and was not being conducted ``properly, fairly, professionally and reasonably as represented in the prospectus,'' the petition alleged.

In the last week of December 1997, the design school management made students enterinto an agreement for job placement with the Katra Technologies India Private Limited. However, after two months of clearing the course and signing the agreement, no action was taken in this regard, the petition alleged.

Meanwhile, the Delhi High Court issued show cause notices to the Ministry of Railways, Northern Railways and others on a petition seeking quashing of the five-year contract of laundering machines to Laundraids.

Justice Anil Dev Singh yesterday directed the Ministry, the Northern Railway, the chief traffic manager and six others to file their replies within four weeks and adjourned the matter to January 25.

The railways had given an advertisement in March this year inviting tenders for mechanical laundry for semi-cleaning/mechanical washing and disinfecting of linen and dry cleaning of blankets and bed rolls used in public retiring rooms, trains and central hospitals, for five years.

The petition filed by Brite Washers, a sister concern of `Klean Rites' through its counsel Anant VijayPalli.

Palli submitted that after having accepted the tenders, holding preliminary discussions and inspecting the spot of each and every tenderer, a meeting was called by railways on June 6 for negotiating the rates. However, it was specifically stipulated that higher rates to the one quoted in the tender form shall not be accepted.

All the eight tenderers, including the petitioner, revised their rates to the one quoted in the tender form and the petitioner, who was originally placed at rating l-7, was promoted to l-3 and Laundraids, who originally stood at l-3, was ranked at l-4, the petition said.

Arguing the case for the petitioner, advocate Rekha Palli submitted that subsequently, no communications were sent to the petitioner so as to appraise it on its status. On August 26, when the petitioner visited the concerned office, it was learnt that the tender stood allotted to Laundraids.

In reply to the legal notice sent by the petitioner on September 8, the Railways informed that Brite Washers was notconsidered for the contract as it had not submitted documents showing its credentials in the washing field and had also not submitted proof of being the sister concern of Klean Rites.