DU Open Book Exams : Delhi HC Issues Notice To Pro Vice-Chancellor On Plea Alleging Failure To Operationalise Grievance Redressal Committee[Read Order]

The Single Bench of Justice Prathiba M Singh has further issued notices to the Ministry of Human Resource Development and the University Grants Commission.

The court said:

'The OBE examinations have commenced on 10th August 2020. Students are expressing several grievances which need to be addressed. The working of the Grievance Redressal Committee which is to look into the grievances of students giving the Online Open Book examinations (OBE) currently underway, cannot be permitted to be hampered in this manner.

Clearly, there is complete non-compliance of the order passed by this Court on 7th August, 2020.'

The order has come in an application moved on the pending writ petition titled Anupam and Ors. v. University of Delhi which was filed to challenge the decision of the Delhi University to conduct online Open Book Exams for final year undergraduate students.

On August 7, while allowing the Delhi University to go ahead with the online OBE, the court had passed a series of directions to streamline the entire process. One of the directions was to constitute a Grievance Redressal Committee which would look into the issues faced by the students in a time bound manner.

The present application has been moved by two members of the Grievance Redressal Committee, Senior Advocate BB Gupta and Advocate Kamal Gupta, contending that neither the DU nor its officials have cooperated with the Chairperson and the other members of the Committee. In fact, the contact details of other two members of the Committee who are faculty members of DU have also not been given to the Chairperson.

While highlighting that even the passwords of grievance emails have not been shared, the application states that he meeting has been arranged and all the activities are being conducted without consulting the Chairperson or any independent members of the Committee.

'There has therefore been complete non-cooperation by the DU officials and the Committee is being by-passed', the application argues.

The application further states that:

'It is further submitted that one of the grievance email addresses is, in fact, not working and the emails addressed thereto bounce back. As the mobile numbers of the Committee were contained in the order dated 7th August, 2020, a large number of students have sent their grievances directly to them.'

While issuing notice to the DU, the court observed that the averments made in the application and the submissions made by the applicant show that no steps have been taken whatsoever for ensuring that the grievance redressal mechanism is operational.

The court will now take up this matter on August 14.

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