The University can set higher attendance standards than the minimum benchmark prescribed by the Bar Council of India for promotion to the next term.

Manmohan, J.

1. Present writ petition has been filed seeking promotion of the petitioner to second semester of LL.B. first year course and also for a declaration that respondent-University's action of not allowing the petitioner to sit in the exams of those subjects in which he had more than 70% attendance in first semester was illegal.

2. Admittedly, in the first semester, petitioner had the following attendance in his 5 subjects:-

3. Petitioner in this writ petition claims that he is entitled to two attendances in each subject on account of attending a moot court as also for remission of some lectures on the ground that he was admitted late.

4. According to Mr. R.K. Saini, learned counsel for petitioner, if provision is made for the aforesaid relaxations then the petitioner’s attendance in two subjects would exceed 70% and his overall attendance would be 65%.

5. He stated that in accordance with Rule 12 of the Bar Council of India's Rules of Legal Education, 2008 (for short ‘Rules, 2008’) a student whose minimum attendance was 70% in a particular subject, was entitled to appear in the examination of the said subject.

6. Mr. Saini pointed out that on 25th June, 2010 through a public notice, the Bar Council of India had announced that universities and colleges had to report compliance with Rules, 2008 by July, 2010.

7. He further submitted that in view of the judgments of this Court in S.N.Singh v.Union of India, 106(2003) DLJ 329, Satyendra Singh v. University of Delhi, WP(C)No. 3225/2008, Kiran Kumar v. University of Delhi & Ors., W.P (C) No.9143/2007, Komal Jain v. University of Delhi, WP(C) No. 8534/2008, as well as Sukriti Upadhyay v. University of Delhi, LPA 539/2010, Bar Council Rules of Legal Education would prevail over the attendance rules prescribed by the Delhi University in its Bulletin of Information 2013-2014.

8. Consequently, according to Mr. Saini, if a student had 70% or above attendance in a subject, the respondents were legally bound to allow him to appear in that subject examination. The Law Faculty had committed an error by not allowing the petitioner to appear in two papers of the first semester in which he had 70% or more attendance.

9. On the other hand, Mr. Mohinder J.S. Rupal, learned counsel for respondent-University stated that in accordance with Bulletin of Information 2013-2014, all students of LL.B. course had to attend minimum 66% aggregate lectures in all the subjects.

10. He stated that if a student was promoted to the next semester without having minimum attendance of 70% in all subjects then the said student would never be able to complete attendance shortfall in classes of the subjects taught in previous semester since the classes of the new subjects in the next semester were bound to overlap leading to utter chaos and mismanagement entirely due to the default of such student. He further stated that even if it is assumed that the student would be able to attend classes of previous subjects that would only be feasible after one year when the next academic sessions would have started. Since considerable emphasis was laid on para 13 of the counter affidavit, the same is reproduced hereinbelow:-

"13. The Faculty of Law admits around 2500 students in first semester every year. Around one fourth of the students get detained every year due to shortage of attendance. The BCI rule if read literally will result into additional burden on the Faculty to make special arrangements for each such defaulting student on regular basis to adjust him for attending classes of previous semester along with the present Semester which is not possible at all looking to sheer number of defaulting students. Such number of defaulting students rather than decreasing in number are bound to increase if the BCI rules are applied in literal sense. The rule cannot be read in a sense which will encourage the evil which it is otherwise framed to prohibit."

11. Mr. Rupal also stated that the new Rules, 2008 make