Delhi HC Reserves Judgment On Pleas To Stop Delhi University's Open Book Exams

A Single-Judge Bench of Justice Pratibha M. Singh heard the arguments posited by the Respondents in the matter as well as the Replies of the Petitioners, and proceeded to reserve the judgement.

In the previous hearing, Justice Singh had asked Senior Advocate Sachin Datta, appearing on behalf of DU, to answer a few questions connected to the conduct of the exams.

Today, Datta commenced his arguments by informing the Court that the Division Bench of Justices Hima Kohli and Subramonium Prasad had heard the matter regarding "preparedness of DU" earlier in the day. He stated that crucial directions had been passed in the matter, wherein it was noted that appearing for OBE was optional and students could sit for physical exams as well.

Datta initially argued that the petition before Justice Singh was infructuous as none of the prayers survived.

"Much water has flown after notifications were issued. Arguments against DU don't stand anymore as the DB has considered the preparedness of DU and has allowed OBE to proceed",submitted the University's counsel.

It was submitted that a taskforce came up with the idea of a blended exam mode, in order to prevent issues, and the OBE method was the most appropriate one as a person did not need to access very high technology to access it. Further, comments from the stakeholders had been taken into consideration.

"This is the best methodology that can be adopted. It requires least amount of technology. There are also inbuilt safeguards. What has been decided by the taskforce is the best method in the given circumstances. It has already been submitted to the DB that results will be declared in the shortest amount of time", submitted the University's counsel.

Datta also averred that DU had gone out of its way to help the students, and the onus was on the Petitioners to point out their personal issues. Additionally, the mock test had also taken place without any glitches and any allegations of website crashing were not on argued and could not be argued.

Further, on the aspect of law, Datta submitted that the Court did not have the authority to transverse into the arena of decision-making by educational authorities.

Datta then answered the questions which had been posed by the Court yesterday. He informed Justice Singh that emails with the question papers would be sent to the students at the time of the start of the examination.

To this, Justice Singh stated that even during physical exams, papers were distributed 5-10 minutes before the exam was scheduled to start. Prof. Vinay Gupta, Dean of Examinations of DU, submitted to Justice Singh that providing the papers earlier may lead to leaking of the same. Also, a 3-hour paper had been designed in a way that a student could complete it in 2 hours.

Prof. Gupta then apprised the Court that all the students had submitted their emails and that the helplines were available on the website for the students to access. Furthermore, a Grievance Committee had also been created vide notification dated 4^th August. It was submitted that a timer portal would be present on the site, and the size of the file could be increased from 5 MB to 7 MB.

Solicitor-General Tushar Mehta then made his submissions on behalf of UGC, stating that the contention that certain Universities had conducted examinations in a manner contrary to the Guidelines of UGC was incorrect, as those Universities had conducted the exams before the Guidelines were issued.

Advocates Akash Sinha and Shivankar Sharma then made their submissions on behalf of the Intervenors. While Sharma submitted that the Court had the power to mould the relief under equitable jurisdiction, Sinha submitted that he had proceeded under the assumption that the Committees had the power to make their decisions, but he was objecting to the arbitrariness of the decisions. Therefore, there was no bar on judiciary reviewing academic decisions in itself.

On that note, Justice Singh reserved the judgement in the matter.

Report of yesterday's hearing : 'Delhi University Seems To Have A Special Problem': Delhi HC Poses Questions On Open Book Examination