Supreme Court: The 3-judge bench of SA Bobde, CJ, AS Bopanna and V. Ramasubramanian*, JJ has set aside the judgment of Delhi High Court, whereby the Court had refused to interfere with the decision of the University denying permission to the applicant to appear in 4th Semester LL.B Examination.
The applicant joined 3-year LLB Course at University of Delhi and completed first 3 semesters without any hindrance. During the 4th Semester, she fell short of required attendance due to two difficulties. One was that she gave birth to a baby on 22-02-2018, which had disabled her to attend classes till the end of March, 2018. The second difficulty was that the Delhi University Teachers’ Association had gone on a strike from 16-03-2018 and hence the University could not conduct the minimum number of classes as prescribed by Rule 10 of the Bar Council of India Rules. Due to inadequate attendance, the applicant was not permitted to write 4th Semester Examinations. Consequently, the applicant had filed an SLP against the said order, whereby the Court had permitted her to attend classes at her own risk on completion of the required formalities. Pursuant to the order of the Court, the applicant had appeared for the examinations of the 4th, 5th and 6th Semesters.
The issue in the present application was that, the University had declared the results of the 4th and 6th Semester examinations, but the results of the 5th Semester Supplementary Examination had not been declared. Therefore, the applicant had approached the Court with I.A.No.102466 of 2020, seeking a direction to the respondent to declare the results of the applicant for the 5th Semester Supplementary Examination and to grant the provisional degree, consolidated mark sheet and character certificate.
The Court, in the light of above, had directed the University to declare the results of 5th Semester Supplementary Examination of the applicant and issue the provisional degree along with necessary certificates, if she had passed the examinations, subject to the applicant clearing other formalities. [Ankita Meena v. University of Delhi, 2021 SCC OnLine SC 36, decided on 22-01-2021]
*Justice V. Ramasubramanian has penned this judgment.
Kamini Sharma, Editorial Assistant has put this story together
