Try to understand plight of students, you cannot compel them to write 12 exams: Karnataka High Court in challenge to KSLU exams

The Bar Council of India (BCI) and Karnataka State Law University (KSLU) should be empathetic to the plight of students and should not compel them to write twelve exams back-to-back, the Karnataka High Court observed on Tuesday..Justice R Devdas said, “Try to understand the students also. You can't compel them to study 12 subjects. It is totally incorrect.".Though the Court conceded that the COVID-19 pandemic affected the conduct of exams, it said,"Now, you can conduct exams, but you can't ask students to write exams for 12 subjects.".The Court made these observations while hearing a plea challenging the decision to hold end semester examinations for law students of intermediate semesters in Karnataka State Law University (KSLU) this year..The Court noted that the University Grants Commission (UGC) had initially issued guidelines on the conduct of examinations amid the pandemic. As per these guidelines, it was suggested that grading of students could be done on the basis of internal evaluation and performance in the previous semester, with 50 percent weightage for each..“UGC had issued guidelines to see that students are not put into these kinds of difficulties," the Court said. .Advocate Shridhar Prabhu, appearing for the BCI, on Tuesday contended that there is neither any provision prohibiting the conduct of two end semester exams together nor any legal constraint in conducting examinations in physical mode..The Court then queried about what was the necessity to conduct exams for law students of intermediate semesters..“Even in the case of engineering students, the Supreme Court has directed to assess them based on the internal marks and marks obtained in previous semester,” the Court said. .Prabhu responded that if students do not clear the mandatory exams as prescribed by the Bar Council Rules, they will not be awarded a degree. Therefore, conduct of examinations is essential, he argued. .It was also pointed out by Prabhu that universities have adopted a-semester-wise approach, as opposed to the year-wise approach. This makes it very important that semester exams are held and that the respective subjects are cleared by the students. .He further apprised the Bench that there is no such thing as an "end of year exam" for law courses..Yesterday, Senior Advocate AS Ponnanna and Advocate Abhishek Janardhan, appearing for the petitioners, had submitted that the decision of KSLU to conduct intermediate exams is in violation of the guidelines issued by UGC and the State government order..It was further submitted that the order passed by State of Karnataka implementing the UGC guidelines was done so in exercise of its power to issue directions in the domain of public health..In view of this, it was highlighted by the counsel for the petitioners that BCI and KSLU cannot issue circulars/directives to the contrary as the issue of public health is not within their domain..Reliance was placed on Praneeth K v. UGC, wherein a three-judge Bench of the Supreme Court had held that the UGC guidelines are mandatory in nature and that universities have a statutory duty to implement the same. The UGC guidelines cannot be ignored as merely advisory, added the petitioners. .However, this was countered by Prabhu, who stated that the Supreme Court decision only speaks about final year students and does not discuss the scope of intermediate semester students. .Can BCI tell universities to conduct exams? Karnataka High Court asks in plea challenging conduct of intermediate semester exams