Bombay high court refuses to grant relief to law aspirants

The Bombay high court has refused to grant any relief to two students who were deemed ineligible for admission to the three year LLB course as they fell marginally

The Bombay high court has refused to grant any relief to two students who were deemed ineligible for admission to the three year LLB course as they fell marginally short of the 45% marks criteria.

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The criteria of securing an aggregate of 45% in all three years of the previous degree course for admission to the Bachelor of Laws (LLB) course was introduced by the state in 2015 and a new rule in June 2019 stated that marks could not be rounded off.

As one of the aspirants was denied an opportunity to participate in the Central Admission Process as he had secured 44.95%, he approached the HC. The HC, however, said that it could not make an exception by directing the university to round off his marks.

A division bench of justices S C Dharmadhikari and R I Chagla while hearing the petitions of two aspirants was informed that one of them had secured a B Com degree in 2001. He had taken admission to the three year course in 2017 but had failed in the first year. However when he sought to take admission in the course again after appearing for the Common Entrance Test (CET) he was refused on the grounds that 45 per cent aggregate marks was missing.

The aspirant said that as he had completed his previous degree in 2001 he could not go back and improve the 44.95 percentage to 45 per cent and hence the HC should make an exception for him and pass directions to round off his marks to make him eligible. He added that after succeeding in the CET he was refused a chance to participate in the CAP round due to the 0.05 per cent shortfall, hence the HC should intervene.

However, after hearing the submissions of the aspirant as well as the university and CET cell, the bench observed that as the aspirant had failed in the first year itself he was not fit to join the law course. Further the court held that the aspirant was not helpless as he was well aware of the 45 per cent aggregate requirement even before he appeared for the CET. Lastly, the bench held that it could not use its writ jurisdiction to interfere with rules formulated by the state as the rounding off option was specifically denied for law courses.

The court made similar observations for the second aspirant who had a similar grouse and dismissed both petitions.

“The court should not have made any personal remarks on the petitioners or their abilities as all facts had been covered in the petitions. In the judgement equality before law is missing for both the petitioners. Policies should student centric and not institution centric,” said advocate Siddharth Ingle who is related to one of the petitioners. He filed the petition on behalf of both petitioners. Senior advocate Rashid Khan argued both the matters before the bench.