Importance Given To Attendance In Professional Courses Can't Be Overstated: Delhi HC Denies Relief To Students With Low Attendance [Read Judgment]

Delhi High Court has refused to provide relief to students who were given a year back for not meeting the required attendance criteria by the IP University, in pursuance of Clauses 9 and 11 of the Attendance Rules.

Reversing the order of the Single Judge, the Division Bench of Justice Hima Kohli and Justice Asha Menon opined that importance attached to attendance in classes in a professional course like BA LLB/BBA LLB cannot be overstated.

The current LPA was preferred against the order of a Single Judge who had directed the University to comply with the following:

• The respondents will promote the petitioners to the 9th semester and in this behalf make suitable adjustments in the form of extra classes, if found necessary.
• The respondents will inform the petitioners as to how they can take extra classes for the 8th semester and when they can sit for the exam qua the said semester.
• The petitioners will file an undertaking in the form of an affidavit with the Principal, VIPS to the effect that they will attend the stipulated classes.

In the present case, two students of Vivekananda Institute of Professional Studies - Nancy Sagar and Prateek Solanki - were detained in 8th semester for not having adequate attendance. Both the students were asked to take a year back and take the exams for the said semester next year, which would've made them finish their course in 6 years instead of 5.

While Nancy had shortage of attendance due to a fractured arm, Prateek's participation in multiple moot court and music competitions caused shortfall in his attendance.

Appearing for the University, ASG Maninder Acharya argued that for being promoted to the next academic year, a student must fulfill the twin requirements of having a minimum attendance of 75% and a credit score of at least 50%, which the respondents/students in the instant case, did not fulfill.

She further argued that the impugned judgment of the Single Judge has completely disregarded the fact that classroom teaching is an essential and integral part of the learning process and shortage of attendance as prescribed in Clause 9, was sufficient reason to detain the respondents/students, even if they had secured the minimum 50% credit score in the fourth academic year.

The University also submitted that the attendance rules have been framed by the University in consonance with Rule 12 of the Bar Council of India Rules of Legal Education, 2008 which stipulates that no student of any degree program would be allowed to take the end semester test in a subject, if the student has not attended a minimum of 70% of the classes held in the subject concerned as also the moot court room exercise, tutorials and practical training conducted in the subject, taken together. The Competent Authority can however reduce the minimum required 70% attendance to 65% in special circumstances.

Appearing on behalf of the respondent students, Senior Advocate Sandeep Sethi argued that shortage of attendance cannot be a ground to refuse them promotion to the next academic year.

It was also argued by Mr Sethi that the language used in Clause 11.3(v)(ii) of Ordinance 11 makes it evident that only those students will fail to get promoted to the next academic year, who do not have the requisite percentage of credits coupled with the minimum required attendance and in the instant case, it is not in dispute that both the respondents/students had obtained the minimum 50% of the total credits in the academic year in question and therefore, they deserve to be promoted to the next academic year.

Disagreeing with the interpretation of the two clauses by the Single Judge, the court noted that for qualifying to be promoted to the next academic year, the student should have not only secured a minimum attendance of 70% in the aggregate of all the courses taken together in a semester, he should also have scored at least 50% of the total

credits in the existing academic year. In the absence of any one of the aforesaid two prerequisites, a student cannot qualify for being promoted to the next academic year.

The court observed that:

'The importance attached to attendance in classes in a professional course like BA LLB/BBA LLB cannot be overstated. There are a line of decisions of the Supreme Court and the High Courts, where it has been opined that fixation of qualifying standards including minimum percentage of attendance is a matter which is best left to expert academic bodies and courts should be slow to interfere in such policy matters unless the decision taken is patently and palpably arbitrary, illegal or in violation of the Constitution of India'.

Therefore, the court went on to highlight that once an academic body has decided on a minimum percentage of lectures that a student must attend at every stage or in the aggregate, then courts must show deference to the said decision as the presumption is that being an expert in the field, the body has applied its mind before prescribing an eligibility criteria. 

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