"Just Because They Are Law Students We Cannot Bypass Law": Karnataka High Court Dismisses Plea Against KSLU's Decision To Hold Semester Exam

Observing that "just because they are law students, from our fraternity, we cannot bypass the law on Public Interest Litigation (PIL)", the Karnataka High Court on Tuesday dismissed a petition filed by two Law Students, challenging the circular issued by Karnataka State Law University (KSLU) in so far as they impose an examination on the intermediate semester law students, for the semester from which they have already been promoted. A division bench of Justice B V Nagarathna and Justice N Sanjay Gowda, said "We don't want to lay down a wrong precedent. Our order will be quoted left right and centre. All private litigations will be filed as Public interest litigations. There has to be absolutely public interest and no private interest in the relief." In its order the bench said "Petitioners are law students, first petitioner is (Rithvik Balanagraj B) 3rd year law student at St. Joseph College of Law, Bangalore and second petitioner (Arunkumara H.S.) is 2nd year law student at S.B.R.R. Mahajana Law College, Mysore. The reliefs they are seeking in this writ petition are not in public interest, in as much as they are seeking relief in their personal interest or private interest. Therefore writ petition cannot be styled as PIL. On this short ground the petition is dismissed, reserving liberty to petitioners to file writ petitions seeking reliefs in personal or private interest, if so advised." The bench placed reliance on the judgment passed by the Supreme Court in the case of State Of Uttaranchal vs Balwant Singh Chaufal. Senior Advocate A S Ponnanna appearing for the petitioners had argued that "The examination will have a disproportionate and adverse impact on the students who were unable to attend classes in online mode for various reasons like accessibility, remote locality, and affordability. They would effectively be compelled to write examinations on subjects which they were never taught and that will have a disparate impact on these students and will impose an extra burden on such individuals who were already marginalized, and violate Article 14." The plea stated because of the sudden shutdown of colleges, the students have lost access to the library and have come back home without any study material in their hand. The students had a legitimate expectation from the university that they would be taught the subjects, given access to study material and then they would be evaluated. If an examination is conducted bypassing this process that would breach this legitimate expectation. Further it was said that the circular issued by Bar Council of India and KSLU is inconsistent with UGC guideline of April 2019, UGC Revised Guidelines dated 6.07.2020 and the government of Karnataka order dated 10.07.2020, mandated all the universities in the state of Karnataka to evaluate its intermediate semester students under an evaluation formula, where 50% weightage would be in internal evaluation and 50 % weightage would be in marks scored in previous semester. The law students of KSLU are equally affected by the pandemic and they are also similarly circumstanced. It was prayed for issuing directions to the Karnataka State Law University to give effect to the government of Karnataka order dated 10.07.2020 which is in line with the UGC Guidelines on Examinations. (50-50 scheme).

"Just Because They Are Law Students We Cannot Bypass Law": Karnataka High Court Dismisses Plea Against KSLU's Decision To Hold Semester Exam

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