The Delhi University Law Faculty has changed the provision of second supplementary examinations, making it such that students in their fifth and sixth semesters, who might have failed in any of the papers in the previous semesters, will not be able to write failed papers again after the culmination of the final exams of the sixth semester.
Supplementary examinations have been a long-standing demand of law faculty students. But with the new regulations, students will have to invest an extra year if they want to clear their backlog papers. Students will then have to sit as private students along with regular students to write their examinations in the months of November and May.
Mohit Kumar Gupta, a former law student at Delhi University, explained, “Students who have backlog papers in odd semesters (first and third semesters) can write these papers again, along with the main papers of fifth semester, while the backlog papers of even semesters (second and fourth semesters) can be written again along with the main papers of the sixth semester. But beyond that, they can’t do so unless they are willing to waste a year to get into the legal profession. ”
However, not all students are able to clear the papers even in the second attempt. Mohit added, “Students are at peril of scoring less than private universities and losing the precious chance of becoming law officers with public sector undertakings, despite becoming judges and public prosecutors. The secrets of evaluation are much guarded administratively.”
Mithilesh Jaiswal, now in his final year, had gone on a hunger strike last year to make supplementary exams beneficial for students. Jaiswal said: “Even last year, we had demanded that supplementary exams should be allowed even during the first and second semesters of LLB. The faculty has cited reasons for inaction on our requests, saying that more supplementary exams will over burden them.”