Attendance Shortfall Case: DU Agrees To Declare Results Of Students Within Next Three Days [Read Order]

The Delhi High Court on Friday directed the Delhi University’s Law Faculty to declare within three days the results of students who were allowed to sit for their semester exams on court orders due to a shortage of attendance and ordered that those who have failed can take supplementary examinations to be conducted soon.

The Bench comprising Chief Justice and Justice V. Kameswar Rao issued the direction after recording the acceptance of the suggestion by Senior Counsel Arvind K. Nigam, representing DU.

The Court was hearing petitions challenging the judgment passed last month, wherein Justice Rekha Palli had quashed the list issued by the Faculty of Law, DU, of students detained for not meeting the prescribed attendance while directing the institution to hold within 8 weeks at least 139 hours of extra classes/tutorials for all those students desirous of attending the same and making up for the shortfall in their attendance.

The the impugned judgment was pronounced with a view to balance the mandate of Bar Council of India (BCI) Rules and the students’ “legitimate expectations” of a fixed academic schedule, after the Court found that the shortfall in the students’ attendance had been caused only due to the faculty’s failure to hold the mandatory minimum number of class hours in compliance with the BCI Rules.

DU had now asserted that the judgment was contrary to law and unsustainable, and that if it is given effect to, it would derail the further admission process for the course in question.

During the last hearing, Mr. Nigam was requested to seek instructions on the suggestion that the results of students who were allowed to sit for their semester exams on court orders be declared. Responding to the suggestion, Mr. Nigam now submitted that the varsity was willing to declare the results, subject to the objection that the interpretation of the Rules and the legal questions involved in the matter be considered and decided on merits by the Court.

He further submitted that as far as those petitioners who failed in the examination are concerned, DU undertakes to give them one more opportunity to appear in the forthcoming supplementary examination. Accepting these submissions, the Court disposed of all appeals except one, with the following directions:

• As undertaken by the University, all such petitioners who have appeared in the examination in question by virtue of the interim order passed by the writ Court, their results shall be declared by the University forthwith within a period of 3 days from today in accordance with the Rules.

• Such of the petitioners who have passed in the said examination would be permitted to prosecute their studies further in accordance with the Rules and such of them who fail in the examination would be given one more opportunity to appear in the forthcoming supplementary examination and thereafter their results would be declared and they would be permitted to prosecute their studies in accordance with the Rules.

The Court, however, clarified that the interpretation of Rules 10 and 18 of the BCI Rules and various other legal principles canvassed in the appeals would be considered by it in DU’s Appeal pending before it.

The Appeal has now been directed to be listed on 15 November, with Senior Counsel Kirti Uppal having been appointed as the amicus curiae.