DU can’t expect 70% attendance when classes not conducted throughout: HC

The High Court on Tuesday remarked that Delhi University cannot expect students to have 70% minimum attendance to sit for exams if it was not taking classes for the entire period prescribed for a course.

A Bench of Chief Justice D.N. Patel and Justice Prateek Jalan told the varsity that it cannot ask students to have 70% minimum attendance while it teaches only 40% of the prescribed study period.

The court’s observation came while hearing a plea of a law student who could not sit for his first semester exam last year on medical grounds. It issued notice to the Centre, Bar Council of India and the university seeking their stand on the student’s appeal.

The student has challenged a decision of a Single Judge Bench of the High Court last November dismissing his plea seeking waiver of shortage of attendance and allowing him to sit for his first semester exam.

During the hearing, the Bench said there should be some mechanism to take care of students like the petitioner, who since March 2017 has been suffering from an illness for which there was no clear and certain diagnosis, “instead of creating a wall”.

According to the plea, while the student suspected him to have contracted typhoid, there was also a possibility that he was suffering from tuberculosis. The students’ counsel said that representations were made to the varsity to allow the student to sit for the first semester exam despite lack of attendance in view of his continuing illness. However, no response was received from the university and later he was told that his name would be struck off from the varsity rolls.