The Delhi High Court today rejected the pleas of two students who wanted to be admitted in LLB course of Delhi University for 2016-17 session after lapse of the last date of admission.
The two were initially unable to get admitted as they did not have their graduation degrees at the time of counselling and a single judge of the high court had denied any relief.
Their appeal against the single judge was rejected by a division bench of Chief Justice G Rohini and Justice Sangita Dhingra Sehgal which said that they cannot be admitted at this stage since they would not fulfil the attendance requirements for the 2016-17 session.
"We are also of the view that the plea of the appellants (students) that even after the last date fixed for admissions, they could have been allowed admission since the original documents are now ready cannot be accepted since it is mandatory for all the students to satisfy the minimum attendance prescribed by the University to qualify to appear for the examinations," the court said.
The bench also upheld the single judge's October, 2016 decision denying relief to the two students, saying the appeals were devoid of merits.
"We entirely agree with the interpretation given by the single judge. Mere absence of a specific clause in the information bulletin that a successful candidate would forfeit his claim for admission if he fails to produce the original certificates, in our considered opinion, does not make any difference," it said.
The bench noted that even by the time the two petitions were filed, the admissions for the academic year 2016-17 were closed as per the University's notice of September 22, 2016.
The single judge, in his October, 2016 verdict, had held that students who secure a rank in an entrance exam but fail to produce the required documents at the time of counselling, cannot fault the university for denying admission.
The division bench's order came while deciding the appeals of students, Bhim Shankar Thakur and Anuj Jaiswal, who claimed that in a case where the candidate fails to appear in person on time for counselling, his claim for admission is liable to be forfeited, however, non-production of original certificate cannot be a ground for cancelling the admission.
They both were denied admission into LLB course for the academic session 2016-17 on the ground that they failed to submit the original degree of the qualifying examination as was required by DU.
Thakur had said that though he had passed the qualifying examination in 2012, he had not collected the degree from the University and it could not be produced at the time of counselling on August 22, 2016.
He had claimed that he had applied and received the degree from the university at Meerut on September 8, last year.
Jaiswal had claimed that the result of the qualifying graduation examination was declared on July 26, 2016 and he could receive the provisional certificate only on September 26, 2016 and therefore, he could not produce it on the date of counselling on August 26 last year.