High Court Directs Delhi University To Devise Mechanism For Issuance Of Attested Marksheet Manually To Students In Urgent Need

The Delhi High Court has directed the Delhi University to put in place a mechanism so that in case of any urgency, a student can write an email to the concerned Dean of Examinations who shall then consider the said request and issue the attested marksheet or transcript manually within a period of 5 working days.

Justice Pratibha M Singh issued a slew of other directions in a bunch of pleas filed by students of the University of Delhi studying various courses who graduated in the year 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2020.

The petitions were filed in 2020 during the Covid-19 pandemic with a grievance that the petitioners were unable to get original degree certificates and transcripts issued from the University. The Petitioners had approached the Court as there was an unreasonable delay in the issuance of the transcripts and the degree certificates.

It was the case of the Petitioners that they had applied to various programs in foreign universities, however due to non-issuance of original documents by the University, they were unable to proceed with their further education thereby causing irreparable harm to their career prospects.

The Court had on 23rd December, 2020, directed the University to file an affidavit setting out timelines regarding issuance of transcripts and digital degrees. Perusing the said affidavit, the Court issued the following directions:

- The Dean, Examinations upon being furnished the documentary proof of urgency, would verify the same and issue the confidential results within a maximum period of four weeks.

- An endeavour shall be made by the University to ensure that if there are any deadlines with respect to the student's admission to any University in India or abroad or any employer needs the same, the documents are issued within the said deadlines.

- A mechanism shall be put in place so that in case of any urgency, a student can write an email to the concerned Dean, Examinations who shall then consider the said request and issue the attested marksheet/transcript manually within a period of 5 working days.

- If any prospective employer or University is willing to accept digital transcripts, the Dean, Examinations shall have a digital signature which shall be affixed on the transcript and the same be issued within 5 working days to the candidate or directly to the employer/university concerned.

- In the case of an urgency, provisional degree certificates may also be issued with 2 weeks of receipt of the application with all the documents from the student/candidate.

- In the future, in order to ensure that no inconvenience is caused to the university/employees as also primarily the students, the schedule as stated above shall be adhered to for holding of the convocation on the last Saturday of February, every year.

- Insofar as the digital degrees are concerned, the timeline given by the University of 10 working days for urgent cases and 45 working days for normal cases is accepted by the Court. Insofar as the backlog of printed degrees for the years 2019, 2020 and 2021 are concerned, if the printing is not already completed, it shall be completed by 30th May, 2022.

- All the students who request for physical degrees shall be issued the said degree certificates without fail. Insofar as printing degrees is concerned, going forward the paper degrees shall be printed by the time of the convocation and shall be issued upon request of students within two weeks after the convocation.

- The timeline for transfer of the data relating to degrees to the digilocker is accepted by the Court, as the transfer of data has to be comprehensively done for all students studying in a semester in a particular course.

According to the affidavit, regarding the timeline for declaration of results after conclusion of the last exam in a particular semester for under-graduate and post- graduate courses, it was stated that a system has put in place to issue confidential results subject to receipt of awards to needy students on the production of documentary proof.

It was also stated that the marksheets or transcripts shall be made available immediately after the declaration of online result whereas in case of manual results, the same will be done within 20 working days.

The affidavit also provided that the University had put in place an online mechanism for receipt of application for the transcript which can be issued within 21 working days and can be sent by post to the addressee subject to fulfilling conditions.

Moreover, the timeline for transfer of marksheet data to digilocker was stated to be within 90 working days after declaration of all the results.

The Court directed that said timelines shall be strictly adhered to by the University, including the Registrars, the Dean or Controller of Examinations, the Deans of various colleges as also the members of the administration of Delhi University.

It also said that regarding issuance of transcripts, legitimate degrees and printed degrees, the Dean of Examinations and the Registrar of University of Delhi shall be personally responsible for adhering to the timelines as set out in the order.

"The University officials shall ensure adherence to the timelines and shall issue necessary administrative directions to all concerned along with a copy of this order for compliance of the directions set out above," the Court added.

The Court had earlier appointed a committee consisting of various personnel from the IT Team of the Delhi High Court, Digilocker, and the National e-Governance Division (NeGD). The said Committee held meetings with the University officials, and a sample digital degree certificate was placed on the record. An online portal www.digicerti.du.ac.in was also activated by the University for the issuance of digital degree certificates to students.

Accordingly , it was submitted before the Court that the data of all the students of the University who graduated up till November, 2019 was available with the University and the University was directed to transmit all data relating to degrees to Digilocker in a time-bound manner.

The Court had also directed the University to consider creating an 'urgent' tab on the portal where the applicant can submit documents such as letter from the employer, or from any university or any other document showing any deadline in which case documents shall be issued within 7 working days.

The plea were disposed of with the aforementioned directions.

Title: DHRITIMAN RAY v. UNIVERSITY OF DELHI & ORS. and other connected matters

Citation:2022 LiveLaw (Del) 200

Click Here To Read Order