The Delhi High Court has ruled that a student pursuing a law degree cannot be detained or prevented from continuing their academic pursuits, including taking examinations, solely on the ground of a shortfall in the minimum prescribed attendance. Reference was made to the binding precedent set by the Division Bench of this Court in the case of Sushant Rohilla, Law Student of I.P. University, In re [2025 SCC OnLine Del 7920], which held that rigid attendance norms are inconsistent with a holistic approach to legal education and can have severe debilitating consequences for students.
The High Court, therefore, directed the respondent university not to detain any of the petitioners (students) on the ground of lack of attendance, and held that since the detention itself is invalid, all consequential benefits must follow. This includes promotion to the next semester, declaration of results, permission to attend classes, and the eventual conferment of the LL.B. Degree in accordance with the law. Any results held in a sealed cover are to be declared within two weeks from the date of the judgment.
A Single Judge Bench of Justice Jasmeet Singh observed that the Sushant Rohilla judgment addressed the broader systemic issue of whether mandatory physical attendance is a “non-negotiable component” of legal education and answered it in the negative. It directed the BCI to re-evaluate attendance norms in line with the National Education Policy, 2020, and UGC Regulations, which favour flexibility.
The Bench noted that Rule 12 of the Legal Education Rules, 2008, is “extremely strict” and its inflexible approach, which prescribes detention as the only consequence for attendance shortage, can have a “cascading and disproportionate impact on students”, affecting their mental health and career prospects.
The Bench observed that there is often an imbalance where educational institutions fail to conduct the minimum number of classes prescribed under Rule 10, yet rigidly enforce the attendance norms under Rule 12 against students. This effectively compels students to attend 100% of the classes held, taking away the 30% flexibility available to them.
Briefly, the case involves a batch of petitions filed by students pursuing the LL.B. Degree Programme at the University of Delhi. The central issue is that the petitioners were unable to meet the minimum prescribed attendance of 70% of classes for various reasons, leading to their detention.
As the University of Delhi, following an inquiry, decided not to declare the results of students who were provisionally allowed to appear for examinations and treated their examinations as cancelled, the controversy revolves around the interpretation and application of Rules 10 and 12 of the Bar Council of India (BCI), Rules of Legal Education, 2008, which mandate this minimum attendance for students to be eligible to take their end-semester examinations.
Appearances:
Senior Advocates Raman Kapur and Saurabh Kirpal, along with Advocates Shivek Rai Kapoor, Vansh Bajaj, Ayush Verma, Nishant Sharma, Vishal Jaswal, Abhay Kumar, Nirbhay Kumar, Aditya Soni, Arun Kumar Yadav, Anupam Mishra, Aman Ranjan, Pooja Singh, Jay Prakash Vidyarthi, Kunal Sharma, Mehaq Rao, Yash Punjabi, Puneet Rathore, Himanshu Sharma, Himanshu Maru, Akshay Kumar, Junaid Aamir, Ayush Tiwari, Abhijeet Vikram Singh, Kshitij Chhabra, Siddhant Soti, Rajnish Kumar, Umesh Kumar, Shantanu Sagar, Raghav Bhatia, F A Ayyubi, Akanksha Rai, Gurneet Kaur, Satvik, Sachin Puri, Kirti Madan, Kamal Mohan Gupta, Mehraj Hakim Ali, Urvi Gupta, Amber Shehbaz Ansari, and Kritika Verma, for the Petitioners
Advocates Mohinder Rupal, Hardik Rupal, Aishwarya Malhotra, Tripta Sharma, Ved Prakash Sharma, Preet Pal Singh, Tanupreet Kaur, Medha Navami, and Kanav Vir Singh, for the Respondents
