Aditya N. Prasad vs University Of Delhi & Ors.
2011 Latest Caselaw 5209 Del

*           THE HIGH COURT OF DELHI AT NEW DELHI

+                      W.P.(C) No. 7365 of 2011

%                     Decision Delivered On: 24th October, 2011


      ADITYA N. PRASAD                             ... APPELLANT
                            Through:    Mr.   Rajiv  Dutta,    Sr.
                                        Advocate with    Mr.Rahul
                                        Sharma, Ms.Jyoti Dutt, Mr.
                                        Kumar Dushyant Singhal,
                                        Advs.

                             VERSUS

      UNIVERSITY OF DELHI & ORS.                ... RESPONDENTS

Through: Mr. M.J.S. Rupal, Ms. Shawana Bari, Advs. for R1 Mr. Sanjeev Sachdeva, Sr. Adv. with Mr. Preet Pal Singh, Ms. Priyam Mehta, Advs. for R-3

CORAM :-

HON'BLE THE ACTING CHIEF JUSTICE HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE RAJIV SAHAI ENDLAW

A.K. SIKRI, ACTING CHIEF JUSTICE (ORAL)

1. The petitioner is pursuing LL.B three year course from the

Faculty of Law, University of Delhi. He took admission in

this course in July, 2009 after completing his degree course

in BA (Hons.) History from Hans Raj College, University of

Delhi.

2. Three years LL.B course of Law Faculty, University of Delhi

consists of six semesters, two semesters in each year. In

each semester, there are five papers. For promotion to

second year (3rd semester), it is incumbent for a student to

pass at least five out of ten papers. Likewise for promotion

to third year (5th semester), it is mandatory to clear 15 out

of 20 papers. The petitioner had cleared more than five

papers in the first year and, therefore, in July, 2010 he was

promoted to second year. However, after taking 4th

semester examination, he could pass only 13 out of 20

papers. Since his performance was below the desired

eligibility prescribed, namely, passing of 15 out of 20

papers, the respondent authorities refused to give him

admission in the third year (5th semester). We may point

out at this stage that the Law Faculty also holds

supplementary examination of 1st and 3rd semester in the

months of July/August every year. However, chance to

appear in such supplementary examinations is not given to

first and second year students, but these supplementary

examinations are available only for final year students. The

petitioner perceived this as discriminatory. According to

him, had he been given a chance to appear in the

supplementary examination, he could have cleared some

more papers which would have enabled him to pass at least

15 papers on the basis of which he could get promoted to

third year. It is on this basis that the petitioner has filed

the present petition with the following prayers:

"a. A writ of mandamus, certiorari or any other appropriate writ, order or direction to the Respondents for holding the provisions of the Law Faculty vis-à-vis examination and promotion of students to III & V Semester from II & IV Semester respectively of LL.B three year course being in violation of the fundamental rights of the students and Bar Council of India Rules and thus being ultra vires to the Constitution of India;

b. a writ of certiorari or any other appropriate writ, order or direction to quash the present Promotion Rules followed by the Respondent University being ultra vires the Advocates Act, 1961 and the Bar Council of India Rules, 2008;

c. a writ of mandamus or any other appropriate writ, order or direction directing the Respondents to promote the Petitioner herein to the V Semester of the Final Year of the LL.B three year course;

d. a writ of mandamus or any other appropriate writ, order or direction directing the Respondent No.2 to hold supplementary examinations for students in each semester so as to give better opportunity and chance to the students to clear their paper in which they have absented/failed;

OR IN THE ALTERNATIVE

to allow the students to take/write supplementary examination in respect of papers missed/failed by him/her which is conducted for only final year VIth Semester students immediately after

declaration of results of the VIth Semester i.e. in the month of July;

e. a writ of mandamus, certiorari or any other appropriate writ, order or direction directing the Respondent Nos. 1 & 2 to bring its promotion policy in conformity with the Bar Council of India and that of internationally accepted standards.

f. to pass any further order(s) which this Hon'ble Court may deem fit in the facts and circumstances of the case and in the interest of justice."

3. Main emphasis is on prayer (d) above, namely, to allow the

students to take/write supplementary examination in

respect of papers missed/failed by such students and not

restricting the opportunity of appearing in the

supplementary examination only to final year students. It

is submitted that in all other universities where such

supplementary examinations are held, all students are

permitted to appear. It is also submitted that this system

was introduced on the basis of recommendation of the

Committee headed by Justice V.S. Deshpande in the year

1989 and has outlived its utility and should not be treated

as valid in today's scenario.

4. The argument of the petitioner appears to be attractive in

the first blush inasmuch as when supplementary

examinations of 1st and 3rd semester in LL.B three year

course are held, why it should be limited to final year

students of 6th semester only and why such a chance

should not be given to other students like the petitioner;

however, when we go into the background and the

rationale while introducing this system, a clear answer

which emerges is that the system followed by the

respondents is not arbitrary or discriminatory and there are

proper and valid justifications for the same.

5. The respondents, in their counter affidavit, have traced out

the promotion rules which were applicable from time to

time. Before the present system was introduced, the

earlier rules for promotion in LL.B course in the Faculty of

Law, University of Delhi were as under:

"a) A student of LLB I/III/V terms shall be eligible for promotion to II, IV or VI terms respectively irrespective of the number of the courses in which he/she has failed to pass or failed to appear in the I, III, V term examinations.

b) A student of LLB second Term shall be eligible for promotion to third Term if he/she has passed in at least eight papers of first and second term examinations taken together and a student of fourth Term shall be eligible for promotion to Fifth Term if he/she has passed in at least eighteen papers of First, Second, Third and Fourth term examination taken together.

Note 1: A student of LLB 1st year, 2nd year and 3rd year of LLB may take supplementary examination of any of the papers as and when the supplementary examinations were held in the Faculty of Law."

6. The respondents have explained that the students were

finding it difficult to cope up with these promotion rules as

there was no possibility of promotion to the 3rd semester till

eight papers were cleared. Apart from this, supplementary

examination was proving to be burdensome to the students

to have such examination immediately after the semester

examination.

7. It is further submitted that there was wide spread agitation

of the students who did not want the supplementary

examination to be held, but were asking for clearance of

less papers instead of eight and eighteen papers to be

promoted respectively to the Third and Fifth semesters

respectively and at the same time abolition of

supplementary examination during the duration of the

course of three years. The span period at that time was

five years which was sought to be increased to six years.

8. The respondents further submitted that the issue whether

relaxation should be granted was referred to a Committee

constituted on 22.12.1986 headed by Justice V.S.

Deshpande (Retd.) and a report was submitted. In the

meeting of the Academic Council held on 7.1.1989, this

report was considered. The unanimous recommendation of

Justice V.S. Deshpande Committee was that no student

should be allowed to carry over the load of more than one

semester to the next semester. It was further unanimously

recommended by the Committee that under the promotion

rules, in no circumstances further relaxation should be

given in this respect.

9. It is further submitted that the Academic Council accepted

the report and thereby decided that as far as LL.B degree

was concerned, no relaxation would be given in the

promotion rules, that is, clearance of five and fifteen papers

respectively for students to be admitted to the 3rd and 5th

semester respectively was not to be relaxed. Accordingly,

in view of the relaxation granted in promotions from eight

and eighteen papers to five and fifteen papers, the

supplementary examination for first and second year were

abolished and the promotion rules thereafter were as

under:

"a) PROMOTION RULES:

A student of the First, Third and Fifth Term will be promoted to the Second, Fourth and Sixth Term respectively, irrespective of the number of courses in which he/she has failed to pass or failed to appear in the First, Third or Fifth Term Examinations as the case may be: provided, however that no such student shall be admitted to the Third or the Fifth Term unless he/she has passed in at least five courses offered by him for the First and Second Term Examinations taken together in case of promotion from I year to II year and in at least fifteen courses offered by him for the First, Second, Third and Fourth Term Examinations taken together in case of promotion from II year to III year of the LL.B course.

Note:- The students eligible for admission to III/V Term must seek admission not later than two weeks from the date(s) of announcement of the results of LL.B II/IV Term Annual Examination failing which they will forfeit their right to be admitted to III/V Term.

(b) Supplementary Examinations

A supplementary examination for students of LL.B V and VI Terms would be held at the end of the VI Term examinations to give one more opportunity to such students who could not clear any one or more papers of V and VI terms. In case a student of V and VI Term had not cleared any paper of papers of I, II, III and IV Terms he/she would clear the same by taking the respective examinations at the regular examination held at the end of each Term:

Provided that such students of V and VI Terms who could not clear any paper or papers of the V and VI Terms even after taking the supplementary examination, he/she would clear the same at the regular examinations of V and VI Terms held at the end of each Term.

Provided further that all the thirty papers, required for getting the LL.B degree has to be cleared within the over all span of 6 years."

10. It is clear from the above that as per the previous

promotion rules when chance was given to the students to

appear in the supplementary examination, the promotion

norms were also more tough. Students were required to

pass eight papers for promotion to second year and

eighteen papers for promotion to third year. These

promotion norms have been relaxed and made much easier

by reducing the number of papers from eight and eighteen

to five and fifteen respectively. That too has been done on

the demand made by the students who were finding the

earlier promotion rules more difficult to cope with. At their

instance, matter was referred to Expert Committee and on

the recommendation of the Expert Committee, the present

rules came into force. It is the students who pleaded for

relaxation in promotion norms in place of appearing in the

supplementary examination. After achieving to get relaxed

norms of promotion, the students, like the petitioner,

cannot turn around and demand the restoration of

supplementary examination for them as well. Such a

situation would amount to having the cake and eat it too.

11. Moreover, even legally speaking, the matters of promotion

are academic matters which are to be left to the academic

institutions and courts are not to tinker with the same

unless it is found that they are in violation of some

statutory or constitutional provisions. No such case is

made out. In State of Tamil Nadu & Ors. v. K. Shyam

Sunder and Ors., 2011 (8) SCALE 474, the Supreme

Court held as under:

"27. Undoubtedly, the Court lacks expertise especially in disputes relating to policies of pure academic educational matters. Therefore, generally it should abide by the opinion of the Expert Body. The Constitution Bench of this Court in The University of Mysore and Anr. v. C.D. Govinda Rao and Anr. [AIR 1965 SC 491] held that "normally the courts should be slow to interfere with the opinions expressed by the experts". It would normally be wise and safe for the courts to leave such decisions to experts who are more familiar with the problems they face than the courts generally can be. This view has consistently been reiterated by this Court in Km. Neelima Misra v. Dr. Harinder Kaur Paintal & Ors. [JT 1990 (2) SC 103 : AIR 1990 SC 1402]; The Secretary & Curator, Victoria Memorial Hall v. Howrah Ganatantrik Nagrik Samity & Ors. [JT 2010 (2) SC 566 : AIR 2010 SC 1285]; Dr. Basavaiah v. Dr. H.L. Ramesh and Ors. [JT 2010 (7) 558 : (2010) 8 SCC 372]; and State of H.P. and Ors. v. H.P. Nizi Vyavsayik

Prishikshan Kendra Sangh [JT 2011 (5) SC 153 : 2011 (6) SCC 597]."

12. For all these reasons, we do not find any merit in this writ

petition which is accordingly dismissed. No order as to

costs.

ACTING CHIEF JUSTICE

(RAJIV SAHAI ENDLAW) JUDGE OCTOBER 24, 2011 pk