3 ailing students with low attendance can appear for BCom exam, says HC

Swati.Deshpande@timesgroup.com

Mumbai: Three students, one a cancer patient and two who have undergone long spells of hospitalization after major accidents, have been allowed to appear for the forthcoming BCom exam despite acute shortage in their attendance. The Bombay high court granted them relief on “exceptional” medical grounds.

The HC bench of Justices B R Gavai and Bharati Dangre held that it would permit Mumbai University to grant approval in such “exceptional cases” even though its earlier order in February, in another case, had barred the varsity from showing any indulgence towards students with less than 50% attendance.

The students from N M College, all adults, had moved court after the university had expressed its inability on March 31 to approve their case. The college, which has barred over 100 other students from the exam, had denied them too, but recommended their case to the university to prevent a “term not granted” status, said their counsel Mihir Desai. But the university, said its counsel Rui Rodrigues, abided by the earlier HC ruling passed by a bench, also headed by Justice Gavai, to decline permission. The university said it was decided in its low attendance grievance redressal committee meeting last month that students whose attendance is below 50% should not be allowed to appear for exams.

The three included two firstyear students. One of them, a girl (18), said she had been “regularly attending her lectures before her treatment” for blood cancer began. The second student, a Kandivli resident (18), said he had met with a major accident in May 2016, which led to multiple fractures in both legs. He was absent between July and October 2017. The third, a second-year student and a Vile Parle resident (20), said he had fractured his right ankle after an accident. He was advised six weeks’ rest.

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