Sixth semester exams this month, results of DU LLB papers held 4 months ago still not out

Shreya Chauhan, a final-year student, said, “Law students face a lot of uncertainty in their final year. It’s especially frustrating because a lot of planning is involved in finding jobs, which has to be postponed because of the results being repeatedly delayed. If we don’t clear all papers, we have to give supplementary exams, which take place soon after our sixth semester exam results are out. Not knowing the previous results cuts down on preparation time.”

“Many of us retook the third semester exams in the fifth semester. If we don’t clear those exams, we will lose an entire year… This wait for the results is endless and extremely anxiety-inducing,” she added.

Another final-year student, on condition of anonymity, said, “So many of us are doing assessment internships (with lawyers and judges, which can lead to job offers) right now. What happens if you don’t pass a paper? Nobody offering a job will take you in. We need to be prepared for such eventualities.”

Ronak Khatri, president of the Delhi University Students Union, said, “We have mailed the university’s exam branch and had many in-person meetings about the delayed results. Our last meeting with them was on May 3. Every time they say the results will come in a week… It’s been 100 days since the exams ended. I study with the law faculty too… Some results from the School of Open Learning are also pending.”

When contacted, Controller of Examinations, Prof G S Tuteja, said, “We are just compilers of the result. Ask the Dean of Law Faculty when she submitted the evaluated copies. We take two weeks to compile the result.”

When asked, the Dean of DU’s Faculty of Law, Prof Anju Vali Tikoo, said on May 6, “I won’t be commenting (on the delay). All I can say is that we expect the results in a day.”

As of Wednesday, the results had not been announced.

This comes amid students raising complaints about the university neglecting the Faculty of Law.

A student said, “Due to university rules, our professors are reluctant to relax attendance requirements for internships, which are prescribed according to Bar Council of India (BCI) rules.”

Rule 25 under Schedule III of the ‘BCI Rules (Part IV): Legal Education Act, 2008’, stated: “Each registered student shall have completed minimum of 12 weeks internship for Three Year Course stream and 20 weeks in case of Five Year Course stream during the entire period of legal studies…”

The student added, “Other law schools get holidays for internships but not us because the university has been trying to finish a three-year course in two-and-a-half years. Our course was supposed to start in July 2022 but it did in January 2023. We  got no summer break in 2023 and 2024.”