College Failed To Conduct Minimum Number Of Hours: Kerala High Court Grants Relief To Law Students Barred From Exams Over Attendance Shortage
The petition before the Kerala High Court was filed by the law students who were deprived of an opportunity to write their examinations on account of a shortage in attendance.
Justice Bechu Kurian Thomas, Kerala High Court
Taking note of the fact that the law students had been prejudiced on account of the omission of law college to conduct the minimum number of working days, the Kerala High Court has regularised the permission granted to the students to write the second-semester examination.
The petition was filed by the law students who were deprived of an opportunity to write their examinations on account of attendance shortage.
The Single Bench of Justice Bechu Kurian Thomas held, “In this context, 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.”
Advocate Siji Abraham represented the Petitioner, while Advocate Surin George represented the Respondent.
Factual Background
The Petitioners are students enrolled in the 3-year Unitary LL.B and 5-year LL.B. courses at St. Dominic's College of Law (fourth respondent), which is affiliated to the Mahatma Gandhi University. Some of the petitioners were initially deprived of an opportunity to write their examinations on account of a shortage in attendance. As such, three petitioners obtained condonation for their attendance shortage from the University itself, and two of the respondent students were found to have sufficient attendance to write the examination. Petitioners 1 to 3 were also identified as having attendance within the condonable limits. They filed a writ petition, and an interim direction was issued directing the Controller of Examinations and the Law College to accept the examination fees of the petitioners provisionally, subject to further orders in this writ petition.
Arguments
It was the case of the petitioners that the college had conducted only 71 working days in total for the second semester for both courses and the petitioners were deprived of making good their shortage of attendance since the minimum required working days as per the University regulations was 90 working days.
Reasoning
On a perusal of the facts of the case and the submissions made, the Bench noted that the college had failed to conduct the minimum number of hours before scheduling the examination.
The Bench found that the petitioners had been prejudiced on account of the omission of the college to conduct the minimum number of working days.
Thus, allowing the petition, the Bench ordered, “In such circumstances, I am satisfied that the permission granted to the petitioners to write the second-semester examination should be regularized, and their results should be published.”
Dealing with a similar matter of attendance shortage, the Delhi High Court, on November 3, 2025, had directed that no law student should be detained from giving the examination on the grounds of a lack of minimum attendance. The matter before the High Court had emanated from an unfortunate incident which had resulted in the loss of a young student of Amity Law School, namely Sushant Rohilla, on August 10, 2016.
Cause Title: Vaibhav Y Kini v. Mahatma Gandhi University (Neutral Citation: 2026:KER:22618)
Appearance
Petitioner: Advocate Siji Abraham
Respondent: Advocates Surin George, A.K.Preetha, Devika Mohan, Reshma R.Krishnan, Devadath G.