Breaking: Karnataka High Court quashes BCI, KSLU decision to conduct offline intermediate semester exams

The Karnataka High Court on Monday quashed a Bar Council of India (BCI) circular mandating the conduct of offline exams for intermediate semester students of Karnataka State Law University (KSLU).."The impugned press release dated 1.11.2020 issued by the Bar Council of India and cicrular dated 9.11.2020 issued by the Karnataka State Law University are quashed and set aside in so far as the intermediate semester examination are concerned with respect to first to fourth year, five year law students," ruled Justice R Devdas on Monday. .The Court further ordered,."...the decision of the Bar Council of India and the respondent University, not being arrived at, on the decision of any expert opinion, unlike the guidelines issued by the UGC, this Court is of the considered opinion that, if not for cancellation of all the examinations, at least the even semester examinations, of the first to fourth years intermediate semester law students requires cancellation...".Justice Devdas was of the view that there was a rationale behind the decision of the University Grants Commission (UGC) in advising the universities to grade students on the basis of internal assessment and performance in the previous semester. .The Court also quashed the time-table for intermediate semester exams for students of first to fourth year. .However, it has been clarified that KSLU may announce a fresh time-table for first to fourth year law students of the five-year law course, for the odd semesters only..With respect to even semesters, the same shall be assessed on the basis of internal assessment to an extent of 50%. The remaining 50% shall be assessed on the basis of the students' performance in the previous semesters, if available, the Court added. ."The marks card shall also be issued with respect to the above terms", said the Court. .Once the judgment was pronounced, another advocate had urged the Court that a similar order be passed for three year BA.LLB students as well..However, Court refused to heed to the same.."You should have informed me, then I would have considered it. Also, there is no petitioner from 3 year course...this is not a PIL.".The Court passed its judgment in a plea challenging the decision to hold end semester examinations for law students of intermediate semesters in Karnataka State Law University (KSLU) this year..Try to understand plight of students, you cannot compel them to write 12 exams: Karnataka High Court in challenge to KSLU exams.The matter was reserved for judgment last week. During the hearing, the Bench had observed that 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. .During the hearing of the plea, Advocate Shridhar Prabhu, appearing for the BCI, had 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..On the other hand, 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 University Grants Commission (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..[Read the judgment]