The Supreme Court on Wednesday turned down Delhi University law student Ankita Meena’s plea to allow her to sit for the fourth-year LLB exams scheduled in the afternoon. (Express photo)
The Supreme Court on Wednesday turned down Delhi University law student Ankita Meena’s plea to allow her to sit for the fourth-year LLB exams scheduled in the afternoon. The university had disallowed her from taking the exams citing shortage of attendance, which the woman attributed to her pregnancy.
A bench of Justice A M Khanwilkar and Justice Navin Sinha observed, “What is disturbing us is that suppose we pass an order now, we are not very comfortable with it that the Supreme Court passes an order at 1 pm allowing a candidate to sit in her examination at 2 pm. There is no point passing an order which cannot be complied with. The time is very limited.”
Opposing her plea, the university counsel said it was difficult to make arrangements in such a short time. “The discipline of academics has been lost completely. What is the point in having a cut-off date? All this will be lost if we entertain all this,” the bench said. A single judge of the Delhi High Court had rejected her request, following which she had appealed to the High Court division bench.
Meena’s counsel told the court that she could not appear in three papers in the examinations but the apex court should allow her to sit in examination Thursday. The court also asked her why she had not applied for maternity leave earlier. The bench granted liberty to the student to pursue her pending appeal before a division bench of the High Court.