S. RAVINDRA BHAT, J.

1. The appellant is a constituent college of the Delhi University (hereafter, also, “the college”) and is funded and maintained by the grants received from the Government of NCT of Delhi (GNCTD). The college follows University statutes & Ordinances and is required to follow all the rules and regulations and notifications issued by the Delhi University, as the case may be, from time to time.

2. The Respondent Nos. 1 to 7 are students (hereafter “the students”) of the college enrolled in the B. Com (Hons) course, and are in their second year, IVth semester. The students are aggrieved by the fact that admit-cards were not issued to them due to shortage of attendance.

3. The college, in accordance with its practice displays the attendance of all students for all the papers/subjects at the end of each month on the college website. In terms of Ordinance VII of the Ordinances of the University of Delhi (also hereafter referred to as “the Ordinance”), each student should necessarily have 66.7 % (2/3rd) attendance in aggregate as a condition of eligibility to appear in the examinations. The Principal of the college, in terms of the discretion, as provided in Ordinance VII(2), however, can allow students with a minimum of 40% attendance to take the examination.

4. On 08.05.2017, a revised list of 172 students with shortfall in attendance was displayed by the college administration. However, many of the candidates, including the respondent/students, sought permission to rely on and to submit Medical Certificates, claiming ignorance of the practice that they (such certificates) were to be furnished within a week of recovery from illness. The college administration entertained the Medical Certificates of all the aforesaid requests. The college claims that students were given all the concessions in terms of the extant rules, including the maximum permissible benefit on medical grounds; however, the respondent-students nevertheless, did not satisfy eligibility conditions to be issued admit cards under the rules.

5. The examinations for the IVth semester began on 09.05.2017; after the first exam, the students along with one of the teachers of the Commerce department, namely, Dr. Abha Wadhwa, approached the authorities, and Dr.Wadhwa gave a letter to the authorities stating that the seven respondents had applied for a change of option to the subject “E-filing of Returns” and were attending her classes regularly (of the said subject) and that due to inevitable reasons, their names were not included in her attendance records.

6. The college, after going through the records found that none of the said students had opted for the subject “E-filing of Returns” taught by Dr. Abha Wadhwa. Rather, six of them had opted for “Entrepreneurship Development” and one for “Cyber Crime and Laws” and their names appeared in the attendance sheets of the said papers, respectively. Dr. Wadhwa, upon this fact being brought to her notice, submitted another application stating that they attended her classes regularly in the month of January, 2017 and had changed their options in the month of February, 2017. Dr. Abha Wadhwa further stated that each one of the respondents had attended all 18 classes out of the total 18 classes held in January, 2017. The statement of Dr. Abha Wadwa was though, found to be contrary to the records of the college with numerous discrepancies in the entry of the names of the students.

7. The appellant college thus contends that it did not accept the attendance records submitted by Dr. Abha Wadhwa and the students were not issued the admit cards to appear in the examination. The attendance records of the students are as follows: