LL.B : Plea In Orissa High Court To Direct Utkal University To Promote Law Students As Per BCI Circular

The plea avers that even though the University administration published an examination schedule for the 10^th Semester examination, it failed to do the same for the 8^th and other even semester examination.

Averments in the plea

The University administration in August 2020 published notice for readmission to 4^th year, even when neither the official notification to conduct the 6th-semester exam was published, nor notification for promotion of students was published.

Even the results of the 6^th semester exam were not published by then, however, when the petitioner, who was in the 3^rd year/6^th semester when the readmission notification was issued, wrote to the university administration, 6^th semester results were issued (August 2020).

After readmission, the classes for the 7^th semester commenced, in which, the petitioner participated and in October 2020, the mid-semester examination (internal assessment) of the 7^th semester took place and the petitioner took the said examination.

However, despite the regular practice, the semester-end examination for the 7^th semester did not take place in December 2020 (which had to take place as per the prospectus of the Utkal university).

Further, citing the Bar Council of India's June 2020 press release, UGC's April 2020 press release (issued in view of COVID Pandemic), the plea avers that based on internal assessment and previous semester marks, the students had to be promoted to the next semester (except for the final year students).

The plea states that the Universities were given the liberty to decide the mode of such assessment, however, the conduct of the end semester examination was made mandatory in the BCI's 2021 press release.

Pursuant to this, Utkal university conducted examinations for the 5^th year (9^th and 10^th semester), however, no end term examination was conducted for 4^th, 3^rd, 2^nd and 1^st year and when the petitioner asked the university the reason to not conduct 7^th and 8^th semester examination, the university said that 5^th year examination was being conducted as per the Odisha govt notification to give priority to 5^th year students.

Thereafter, students from all the years staged a peaceful protest in August 2021 demanding promotion of pending semester students on the basis of online internal examination of odd and even semester examination as per BCI's June 2020 notification.

After the protest, the authorities assured that they would be promoted for the pending odd semester examination on the basis of the internal examination which they wrote in October 2020.

However, on 24^th August 2021, the University allegedly misinterpreted BCI's June 2021 release and held that end term exam was mandatory and therefore, it issued end term examination dates for 7^th Semester (which they had to conduct ideally in December 2020).

However, the plea avers that the said BCI release was applicable only to 9^th and 10th-semester students and that 4th-year students had to be promoted to next semester based on internal evaluation or on the basis of previous year scores.

Now, the students of 4 colleges (affiliated with Utkal University) approached Education Minister with the grievance that the pending semester students were not being promoted.

Further, the University was tried to be convinced that examinations were mandatory for 5th-year students only and not for other semesters and that owing to BCI 2020 press release, the University was free to promote students based on internal and previous year performance of the students.

The petitioner submitted that he was willing to give the 9th-semester examination in December and the 10^th Semester examination before June 2022, if they are promoted to next year as per the BCI's June 2020 notification.

Prayers in the plea

• Order a writ of mandamus directing the Opposite Parties to issue a notification for publication of official notification of dates of online internal examination of 8^th semester and promotion of 8th-semester end-term examination on the basis of online internal exam evaluation within September 2021.
• Publish mark sheets of pending 8th-semester end-term examination within 1 month from the date of commencement of examination within November 2021.
• Publish mark sheets of pending 7th-semester end-term examination within September 2021 considering that examination is over since 9^th September 2021
• Publish dates with adequate gaps and detailed guidelines about the mode of examination of 9th-semester end-term examination whether online or offline within November 1^st week of 2021 by way of an official notification
• Conduct and finish 9th-semester end-term examination either online or offline within December 2021 with adequate gaps between each semester examination as per the academic calendar of Utkal University Prospectus.
• Publish results and mark sheets of 9th-semester end-term examinations within January 2022
• Publish dates with adequate gaps and detailed guidelines about the mode of examination of 10th-semester end term examination whether online or offline within February 2022 by way of official notification.
• Conduct and finish 10-semester examinations in April 2022 with adequate gaps between each semester and also considering that an adequate gap of 3months for 10% semester exam is required considering submission of dissertation projects in the 10th-semester examination.
• Publish results and mark sheets of 10-semester examinations within June 2022
• Publish the Degree Certificates within July 2022 considering that the petitioner has taken admission on 4 August 2017 and should pass out within 1s week of August 2022.