A university must provide personal communication regarding changes in examination schedules to avoid unfairly denying students their opportunity to complete their course.

JUDGMENT

Prateek Jalan, J. (Oral)

The proceedings in the matter have been conducted through video conferencing.

1. The petitioner is pursuing an LL.M. course from University of Delhi ["the University"]. He has filed this writ petition seeking permission to appear in the Intellectual and Industrial Property Laws-I (LM-1018) paper in December 2020.

2. At the outset, it is recorded that learned counsel for the parties have no objection to the petition being heard by this bench, although I was a member of the Division Bench which heard the petitioner's appeal against an interim order passed in this petition.

3. The petitioner enrolled for the LL.M. course in 2014. The duration of the course was three years (6 terms). Under the University's rules and regulations, all the papers for the LL.M. course had to be cleared within six years (known as the "span period"). The petitioner was thus required to clear all the examinations by December, 2019.

4. The petitioner has passed all the examinations within the said period, except for one paper from the first term, viz. Intellectual and Industrial Property Laws-I (LM-1018). He was unable to appear in this paper in the regular examination of December, 2014 or subsequently in December, 2015. He did appear in the said paper in December 2016, December 2017 and December 2018, but was unsuccessful in the said paper.

5. The petitioner, therefore, applied to take the paper in the last attempt available to him in December, 2019. For this purpose, a date-sheet for the LL.M. Examination dated 31.10.2019 was issued by the University, in which the date of the Intellectual and Industrial Property Law-I Examination was declared as 28.12.2019. A perusal of this date-sheet (which has been filed by the University with its counter-affidavit as Annexure R-1) shows that it was entitled "Revised & Final Date-sheet for LL.M/LL.M (Comparative Laws) 2/3 Year Courses".

6. However, by a further notification dated 27.11.2019, the University declared another "Revised & Final Date-sheet for LL.M/LL.M (Comparative Laws) 2/3 Year Courses". In this revised date-sheet, the date of the Intellectual and Industrial Property Law-I Paper was advanced to 16.12.2019. It is undisputed that the revised date-sheet was not communicated to the candidates by any personal means of communication but only uploaded on the website of the University.

7. In these circumstances, the petitioner did not appear for the examination in December, 2019. As far as the examination of December, 2020 is concerned, the petitioner was not eligible to appear for the same in view of the fact that the maximum span period of six years from the date of his admission had lapsed.

8. The petitioner approached this Court by way of the present writ petition seeking a further opportunity to sit for the examination in the aforesaid circumstances. He also sought interim relief in the writ petition, which was originally declined, by orders dated 12.11.2020 and 26.11.2020.

9. Against the aforesaid orders, the petitioner approached the Division Bench in LPA No. 372/2020, which was disposed of by a judgment dated 09.12.2020 (to which I was a party). The Division Bench observed as follows:

"3. It appears that the examination of the aforesaid paper was initially fixed on 28th December, 2019 and the appellant was to appear in the said examination, being his last remaining attempt to complete the said course. It appears from the facts of the case that respondent University pre-poned the date of the examination to 16th December, 2019. However, the intimation about the said pre-ponement was not given to the appellant either b