NEW DELHI: The Delhi High Court on Monday ordered that no law student in the country can be stopped from taking exams for want of minimum attendance, and directed the Bar Council of India (BCI) to review its attendance rules.
Delivering a set of measures aimed at preventing academic rigidity that can harm students’ mental health, a division bench of Justices Prathiba M Singh and Amit Sharma said that colleges must not use attendance shortfall as grounds to withhold promotion or bar students from examinations.
The ruling was issued while disposing of a suo motu petition that followed the 2016 suicide of Sushant Rohilla, a third-year law student at Amity, who allegedly died by suicide after being barred from semester exams for not meeting attendance requirements.
The Supreme Court had initiated the petition in September 2016, and it was later transferred to the Delhi High Court in March 2017.
“This court is strongly of the view that norms in education in general and legal education in particular, can’t be so stringent so as to lead to mental trauma, let alone death of a student,” the bench said.
The HC directed the BCI to begin stakeholder consultations—bringing together student bodies, parents and teachers—to revisit the norms.