Rules in prospectus will prevail over ‘misleading notice’ on DU website: HC junks law student’s plea

The HC said that Kumar is “not entitled” to sit for the supplementary examination for the backlog paper of ‘Competition Law’ along with the supplementary examination for fifth and sixth semesters to be held at the end of sixth term examination.

Perusing several HC judgments, the judge said that it is “beyond any doubt that the supplementary examination rules as spelt out in the prospectus for 2019-20 shall govern the procedure with regard to the conducting of supplementary examination”. The court said that Kumar “cannot claim any right based on some information available on the website” which is contrary to the supplementary examination rule in the prospectus.

The HC observed that the object of such supplementary examination is to give one more opportunity to those students who could not clear any one or more papers of fifth and sixth semesters. The case of the petitioner does not fall in this category, the court said. “The petitioner has backlog paper for the fourth semester and no supplementary examination for the semester is to be held at the end of the sixth term. In view of the above, there is no merit in the writ petition,” the HC said dismissing the plea.

It was Kumar’s contention that he had a backlog exam for competition law from the fourth semester which was scheduled for August 25, 2022 “as part of the regular examination for the said semester”. At the same time, the sixth semester regular examinations were scheduled to be conducted from August 10-August 29, 2022. However, a day prior to the backlog examination on August 24, 2022, the sixth semester exam in the subject of ‘Principles of Taxation’ was scheduled to be held.

Kumar contended that he came across a notice/information titled ‘Important Rules’ displayed on the official website of the Faculty of Law, which reads, “After the completion of six Terms, a student of LLB may take supplementary examination in any paper of I or III Term along with the V Term supplementary examination and in any paper of II or IV Term along with the VI Term supplementary examination held for the purpose: Provided that all the thirty papers required for getting the LLB Degree have to be cleared within the span period of six years.”

Kumar contended that this information is available on the website and he was “misled to believe that fourth semester supplementary examination will be conducted along with the sixth semester supplementary examination”.

Since there was no time gap between the fourth semester backlog examination and sixth semester examination in ‘Principles of Taxation’, he was unable to thoroughly prepare and clear both examination, so he prepared for the sixth semester examination in ‘Principles of Taxation’ instead of fourth semester backlog examination in ‘Competition Law’ under the belief that if he failed in fourth semester backlog examination, he could reappear in the same along with the sixth term supplementary examination. Kumar appeared for both the examinations, and he passed the principles of taxation exam, but could not clear ‘Competition Law’.

After inquiry, he learnt that the supplementary exam for fourth semester will not be held along with supplementary exam for sixth semester as the practice had been discontinued in 2017.

DU argued that Kumar who took admission in 2019 will be governed by the terms and conditions in the prospectus of the Faculty of Law for 2019-20. DU said the prospectus clearly states that supplementary examination for students for fifth and sixth terms of LLB would be held at the end of sixth term examination to give one more opportunity to such students who could not clear any one or more papers of fifth and sixth terms, whereas the supplementary exam of backlog of fourth semester could be cleared by taking such exam at the regular examination held at the end of said semester.

The court noted that it wasn’t disputed that this information referred to by Kumar was available on Faculty of Law’s website and it is contrary to the rule for supplementary examination in the prospectus for 2019-20 and the subsequent years.

It further noted that it wasn’t Kumar’s case that the rules on supplementary exam are not given in the prospectus for 2019-2020. The court noted that Kumar’s contention was that he had been misled by the information in the form of ‘Important Rules’ available on the official website.

Justice Mahajan also took note of his own judgment in Sonam Rawal v University of Delhi and Ors which posed a similar situation where he had taken the view that “any misleading information available elsewhere other than in the Bulletin of Information/prospectus would not clothe the candidate with any legal right and in such a situation doctrine of estoppel also cannot be pressed into service against the respondent-University, when such information is ex facie contrary to the rules mentioned in the Bulletin of Information/prospectus”.