GNLU appeals against decision of the single judge in detention norms case GNLU Students petition to the Review Commission

The Gujarat National Law University (GNLU) has filed a Letters Patent Appeal against the order of a single judge of the Gujarat High Court setting aside the decision of the GNLU to detain students for one year who had not cleared their backlog papers and to end the goodness mark norm..The Gujarat National Law University (GNLU) has filed a Letters Patent Appeal against the order of a single judge of the Gujarat High Court setting aside the decision of the GNLU to detain students for one year who had not cleared their backlog papers and to end the goodness mark norm..A Division Bench of the Gujarat High Court comprising of Chief Justice Bhaskar Bhattacharya and Justice J B Pardiwala admitted the appeal but refused to grant an interim stay on the single judge’s order..By way of background, nine students of GNLU had filed a petition in the Gujarat High Court challenging the legality and validity of various examination rules under which they were detained..The single judge observed that, “The action of the respondents (University) of detaining the students from promotion to the next academic year…is illegal, improper and violative of the statutory provisions under the GNLU Act.”.The Court also quashed another arbitrary examination rule, which provides that the student has to secure two marks for “Goodness” over and above the minimum passing 40% marks in “continuous evaluation” in order to become eligible for the end-semester Examination. The Court, while quashing this rule, observed that this rule may give rise to discrimination and arbitrariness resulting into discontent amongst the students..Dr. Bimal N. Patel, GNLU Director had earlier told Bar & Bench that the GNLU would be filing an LPA before the Gujarat High Court. He added that the judgment is not precise and interferes into the academic and examination standards which will be detrimental to the standards of the education at large..Recently, a Review Commission was also appointed to review the working of the University. Dr. N.R. Madhava Menon headed the Commission with Dr. Bakul Dholakia and Dr H. C. Dholakia as members. The Commission has been appointed to plan and execute the list of criteria to make GNLU, a true world class University in the next five years..Allegedly, 400 plus students have submitted a petition before this Commission regarding certain issues that they are facing in GNLU (A copy of which is with Bar & Bench). Some of the issues raised in the Petition include non appointment of a permanent Registrar, need for a students’ association, mandatory PSU internship, examination rules, and back door admissions which was also reported by TOI. These are some of the few issues which a majority of the student community which has been a part of GNLU for over two years or more feel needs to be addressed..The petition also raised the issues relating to detention and goodness marks which has been quashed by Gujarat High Court..Bar & Bench tried to reach Dr. Bimal N. Patel, GNLU Director for his comments on the issues raised by the student community but he was unavailable.