The Delhi High Court dismissed the plea of a former LLB student who had cleared only 16 out of 30 papers. The Delhi High Court recently observed that centenary chance examinations offered by Delhi University were like a beneficial dispensation and “not a matter of right”.

The observation was made as the court upheld an April 1 notification issued by the varsity for “Centenary Chance Special Examination Phase II”, giving a second chance to former students (who had studied undergraduate, postgraduate and professional courses in the varsity) to reappear and give examinations which they had not cleared previously but with a limit of a maximum of four papers. In doing so, the court dismissed the plea of a former student of Campus Law Centre (CLC) who studied law (LLB) between 2009 and 2012 and had cleared only 16 out of 30 papers. The DU issued the notification for the first centenary chance exams on May 1, 2022. The petitioner argued that the initial notification did not restrict the number of papers an ex-student could attempt; however, the April notification limited it to a maximum of four papers. A single-judge bench of Justice C Hari Shankar, in its May 20 order, observed, “The centenary chances were not a matter of right. Neither did any candidate who had failed to clear all papers within the maximum span period of the course have a right to seek a further chance to clear the papers, nor did the DU have any obligation to provide any such chance. Both centenary chances were beneficial dispensations provided by the DU suo motu as it were, as part of its centenary celebrations. They were, therefore, in the nature of a benefice, not a right. The terms on which such a benefit was to be extended to ex-students were also, therefore, a matter entirely within the DU’s province and exclusive discretion. There was no legally enforceable obligation on the DU to provide any centenary chance.” The court also said the DU also had no legal obligation to provide a second Centenary Chance. It said if the DU decided to allow all the papers to be reattempted in the first centenary chance, and restricted the second centenary chance to four papers, it was nothing but a “legitimate exercise of the discretion vested” with the varsity on the issue. “There being no right in the petitioner to even insist on any centenary hance in the first place, the petitioner can certainly not plead any right to attempt all the backlog papers in either centenary chance,” the high court underscored. The high court noted that the petitioner had sought to contend that every centenary chance extended by the DU has to necessarily cover “all remaining papers which a student has to clear”. “There can, according to the petitioner, be no limitation to the number of papers, and any such limitation is arbitrary,” the order notes.

Justice Shankar then said that courts must be “extremely slow in interfering” in matters of academic policy and rely on the wisdom of academic authorities. The high court said that unless a person “makes out at least a prima facie case of arbitrariness or invalidity” of the academic policy decision under challenge, it would be “hazardous” for a court even to call upon the University to be answerable regarding every such policy decision. “No prima facie case of arbitrariness or invalidity of such policy has been made out either in the writ petition or during the course of oral arguments,” the high court said, adding that if academic bodies are made answerable to court on every policy decision of theirs, it would “severely affect their autonomy and freedom of administration”. It also said the DU’s April 1 notification was a pure policy decision. It added that the varsity’s decision to restrict the number of papers that can be attempted in the second centenary attempt to four is “obviously” a decision taken by DU for “legitimate reasons”.