Delhi HC asks DU to provide timeline for exams and degrees

The Delhi High Court has asked the Delhi University to provide a timeline for declaring results after the conclusion of last semester examination and providing marksheet, degrees in actual and digital form, to enable students to go for further studies and employment.

A single-judge bench of Justice Pratibha M Singh asked the varsity administration to file a comprehensive affidavit.

"This court is of the opinion that in order to ensure that there is a comprehensive, streamlined procedure for declaration of results, issuance of transcripts, marksheets and degree certificates, etc, DU ought to have a prescribed timeline," the court said.

It said there should be a timeline for conducting examinations and declaring results in every semester of undergraduate and postgraduate courses. Likewise, there should be a timeline for holding the convocation on an annual basis.

The court was hearing a plea by a group of students for a direction to the university to declare their results and issue degrees.

The Delhi University, for its part, said as per executive council resolution of February 16, 1993 degree can be “advance degree before convocation” if student is leaving country to pursue higher studies. It also said all other students can apply for the provisional certificate and it has started issuing digital provisional certificate. So far, the university has sent data of degree of 27000 students of 2017 to DigiLocker and within a month’s time entire data of 2017 will be transferred to DigiLocker followed by 2018 and so on.

Terming the DU's response as quite cryptic, the court it was not satisfactory as no specific timelines have been given for the issuance of digital degree certificates and for transmission of data to Digilocker.

"The DU shall file a comprehensive affidavit providing the timelines and procedure so that students are not inconvenienced every semester and are not forced to approach the court for obtaining their transcripts, marksheets, degree certificates, etc," the court, said, putting the matter for consideration on February 17.