Bombay High Court allows ILS Law College students with attendance shortage to appear for exams

The Bombay High Court on Monday allowed students of Indian Law Society's (ILS) Law College with attendance shortage to write their semester-end examinations. [Aniruddha Gaurav Gursal and Anr v. State of Maharashtra and Ors]

A Division Bench of Justices RI Chagla and Farhan P Dubash cited a Supreme Court order protecting such students as a one-time measure.

"We find that the order dated 21st July 2026 of the Hon'ble Supreme Court applies to all the Petitioners before us, notwithstanding the shortfall in their attendance," the Court said.

It added that the benefit would accrue to even those students who did not approach the Court.

"The benefit of the aforesaid one-time protection shall also be extended to other similarly situated students of the College whose academic session was ongoing on 3rd November 2025 and who were prevented from appearing for the relevant examinations during the academic session 2025–26 solely on account of shortage of attendance..."

In November 2025, the Delhi High Court barred law colleges from stopping students from sitting for exams over attendance shortage. After the Bar Council of India (BCI) challenged the ruling, the Supreme Court stayed it prospectively in May. It then granted a one-time protection on July 21 to students who were mid-session when the Delhi High Court judgment was pronounced.

The Bombay High Court said that this protection did not depend on individual attendance percentages and was not limited to final-year students or to Delhi's territorial jurisdiction.

"The order dated 21st July 2026 neither confines its operation to students within the territorial jurisdiction of the Delhi High Court nor excludes students studying in States where the concerned High Court had taken a contrary view. Equally, it does not reserve to individual institutions the power to determine whether the one-time protection granted by the Hon’ble Supreme Court should be extended to their students."

The College and University must now hold supplementary exams within four weeks, with successful students eligible for admission to the 2026-27 session.

The Bench left the underlying dispute - over whether the University's condonation rules set the effective attendance floor at 50% or 55% - open for a future case.

Senior Advocate Shiraz Rustomjee and Advocate Sharad Bansal assisted the Court as amici curiae.

ILS Law College was represented by Advocates Shailendra S Kanetkar and Pranay Kothari.

The University Grants Commission (UGC) was represented by Advocates Rui Rodrigues, Milind Deshmukh, Shailendra S Kanetkar and Pranay Kothari.

BCI was represented by Advocates Prasad Gajbhiye and Rutuja Joshi.

The State was represented by Additional Government Pleader (AGP) OA Chandurkar and Advocates VG Badgujar and Priyanka Chavan.

The petitioners were represented by Advocates Amrut Joshi, Mohammad Khan, Ashraf A Kapoor, Sumas Patel, Amit Icham, Chaitanya Purankar, Asmi Desai, Dr Uday Warunjikar, Parth Deshpande, Aishwarya Tuwar, Madhavi Ayappan, Arushi Keniya, Kunal Shirgire, Prakash Yedage and Vikas Kolekar.

[Read Order]