Kerala High Court comes to aid of law students with attendance shortage

The Kerala High Court recently came to the aid of a group of law students who were barred from writing exams citing attendance shortfalls, after noting that the college was partly to blame since it had cut short the number of its working days [Vaibhav Y Kini & Ors. v. Mahatma Gandhi University & Ors.]..Justice Bechu Kurian Thomas noted that the college, St. Dominic's College of Law, had failed to conduct classes for the stipulated minimum of 90 days. This meant that the students were deprived of a chance to make up for the shortage in attendance."This Court bears in mind the fact that the college had failed to conduct the minimum number of hours before scheduling the examination, which it is was bound to do. Had the college carried out the minimum number of hours and working days, there was every chance for the students to make up for the shortage in attendance and even achieve the minimum percentage of attendance or at least fall within the condonable limit. Therefore, petitioners have been prejudiced on account of the omission of the college to conduct the minimum number of working days," the Court said in its order. .The order was passed on a petition moved by nine students enrolled in the 3-year and 5-year LLB courses at the Mahatma Gandhi University affiliated St. Dominic's College of Law.Some of the petitioners were initially deprived of an opportunity to write their examinations on account of shortage in attendance. The petitioners contended that the college had conducted only 71 working days in total for the second semester for both courses. They argued that were deprived of a chance to make up for the shortage in attendance since the minimum required working days as per the University regulations was 90 working days..While the petition was still under consideration before the court, five of the petitioner-students were permitted to write the exams. The three remaining petitioners were found to have attendance within the condonable limit. On October 9, 2025, the Court directed the directing the college and the controller of examinations to provisionally accept examination fees from the three students. In its final order passed on March 12, the Court deemed it fit to make the order permitting the three students to write the exams absolute since the college itself had failed to conduct classes for the minimum stipulated days..The petitioners were represented by advocate Siji Abraham. .[Read Judgment].Follow Bar and Bench channel on WhatsAppDownload the Bar and Bench Mobile app for instant access to the latest legal news.