[DU Open Book Examinations] Read All The Directions Issued By HC To Be Complied By DU While Conducting Exams [Read Judgment]

The Single Bench of Justice Prathiba M Singh acknowledged at the outset that the scope of the petitions pending before her is restricted to ensuring that the online OBE method is properly carried out without causing severe disadvantages to students, as the challenge to the UGC Guidelines which enabled the University to choose the online OBE method is already pending before the Supreme Court.

The said Bench also took into consideration the fact that the coordinate Division Bench of Justice Hima Kohli and Justice Subramounium Prasad had already fixed the schedule as per which the entire process of conducting OBE would be carried out by the Delhi University.

Therefore, in light of the limited scope of these petitions, the court has issued the following directions to ensure that the exams through the online OBE method are carried out in a proper manner:

1. The question papers shall be sent by email to all the students.
2. Regular students shall be given the complete three hours for answering the question papers. Additionally, regular students are given one more hour for scanning the answer sheets and for uploading the same. Thus regular students would have a total period of four hours to complete the exam, scan and upload/email the answer sheets
3. PWD category students are also given one additional hour for downloading the question paper, completing their answers and uploading the answer sheets i.e., a total of six hours
4. Students have an option of either scanning their answer sheets question wise and upload the same on the centralised portal, or converting the same into PDF and mail them to obescript@exam.du.ac.in
5. Students shall receive an auto-generated message acknowledging that their answer sheets have been received by the University
6. DU shall ensure that the central email id as also the email ids of all the colleges and departments have adequate capacity to receive and store the answer sheets so that the emails sent by the students do not bounce back.
7. List of all the Nodal Officers has to be uploaded on the DU portal by August 8
8. CSC Academy shall notify all its centres about the schedule of the online OBE by the end of today i.e., 7th August, 2020, so that the said centres can provide assistance to students to the best extent possible.

Grievance Cell: In case the students have any grievances, they shall send their grievances at grievanceexam2020@gmail.com and grievance@exam.du.ac.in, which have already been notified by DU. The said emails shall be monitored and supervised by Dr. Sanjeev Singh, Joint Director DUCC, who shall entrust the same to the Grievance officers. The emails received on these email addresses shall be addressed and resolved by the DU's Grievance Officers within 48 hours. Any grievances, which are not addressed within the said period, shall be automatically referred to a 'Grievance Redressal Committee'.

Grievance Redressal Committee

In order to ensure transparent and fair redressal of grievances raised by the students, constitution of a Grievance Redressal Committee has been directed which will have the retired judge of the Delhi High Court, Justice Prathiba Rani as its Chairperson.

The Grievance Redressal Committee shall deal with all the grievances of the students in respect of downloading of question papers, uploading of answer sheets, technical glitches, delays in uploading and any other issues faced by students during the conduct of the OBE examinations.

The decision in respect of the grievances shall be taken by the Committee within 5 days from receipt of the email and the student shall be duly notified of the said decision. Grievance redressal shall continue during the entire period of the examinations and shall not be postponed till the end of the examinations, in order to ensure simultaneous resolution of the same.

At the end of the OBE examinations a comprehensive report of the conduct of examinations shall be submitted by DU, within four weeks.

Evaluation

The uploaded answer sheets of students shall also be simultaneously sent for evaluation to the respective teachers/faculty to ensure that declaration of results is not delayed in any manner. As seen from the past examination schedules announced by DU, results are usually announced within a short period after conclusion of examinations and the same trend ought to be maintained.

The court has also clarified that the concerns regarding the privacy of the students and the storage of data collected during the OBE will be addressed at a later stage. In light of the same, the Delhi University has been directed to file a fresh affidavit.

Click here to download the Judgment