250 DU law students stopped from appearing for exams due to low attendance

DU’s law faculty has detained around 250 students on account of having lower than 70 per cent attendance. Of this 150 are first year students who will now have to give entrance exam again to take fresh admission in the course.

Around 150 first year Delhi University law students, including the university students’ union secretary, face uncertain future after they were stopped from giving the first semester exams due to short attendance.

The semester exams started on Tuesday but the students were not allowed to sit for the exam. (HT FILE)

DU’s law faculty has detained around 250 students on account of having lower than 70 per cent attendance but first year students say they are the worst hit as they will now have to give entrance exam again to take fresh admission in the course.

The development comes days after a CPU was allegedly stolen from the faculty hours after officials had compiled the attendence of students.

The semester exams started on Tuesday but the first year students were not allowed to sit for the exam. The first year students were scheduled to sit for their first semester exams on Tuesday.

“I don’t know what my exact attendance is but my admit card was not given to me as my name was in the list of students with lower than 70% attendance. I will no longer be a student and will have to give entrance again to study law at DU. This is a major problem only for first year students,” a first year student, who did not wish to be named, said.

Mahamedha Nagar, secretary DUSU and member of Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad, is among the 150 first year LLB students who have been detained.

“Last year also special provision was given to students to give exam. We will be holding a protest today at the faculty against this decision as it has put future of so many students at stake. Some students have also filed a writ petition on this issue,” she said.

Ved Kumari, dean law faculty, said the decision was taken due to attendance norm set by the Bar Council of India (BCI). “These are BCI rules that a student needs to have at least 70% attendance otherwise the student cannot be allowed to sit for the exam,” she said.

Kumari said that around 250 students out of the total 7,000 students have been detained due to short attendance.

“The first year students, who have been detained due to short attendance, will have to sit for the entrance exam again as their admission will be cancelled. This is as per the BCI legal education rules,” she said.

While some students said they should be given another chance, Kumari insisted the faculty is following BCI rules.