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Delhi

HC fumes over DU's unpreparedness; orders it to provide reading material

new delhi: With the Delhi University expected to begin its final-year online open-book examinations from August 10, the Delhi High Court on Wednesday tore the varsity apart over its lack of preparedness, contradictory submissions in court and its refusal to be able to provide reading material and assistive devices to students under the Persons with Disabilities (PwD) category.

A double bench of Justice Hima Kohli and Justice Subramonium Prasad cited the data on mock tests submitted by the university to note that DU had failed to adequately prepare students with the new format of the examination. It said that the varsity must inform all students about the two options of submitting answer sheets (via email or DU portal) by Thursday evening.

Besides, the court also directed DU to mandatorily provide at least two reading materials to visually impaired students within three weeks of receiving a request among other directions for the varsity.

The hearing on Wednesday saw the court pull up DU on various counts starting from the university's submission that a new format to submit answer sheets was to be introduced. When Justice Kohli asked the varsity whether this option was introduced in either of the two phases of mock tests, the counsel for DU said it was not. To this, the court questioned the very point of the mock tests if students were not able to acquaint themselves with the actual format of the examination.

Moreover, when the university cited logistical issues in conducting the exams, Justice Kohli said, "You are taking your own sweet time DU, while other universities have wrapped up the exams."

In another instance, DU submitted to the court that all PwD students had been personally informed via email about the new option of submitting answer sheets through attachments in an email. However, senior advocate Kapil Sibal, appearing for one PwD student in the matter informed the court that his client was not notified of this. At this point, the varsity said only "visually impaired students" had been contacted. The court, once again pulled up DU, saying, "PwD doesn't mean visually impaired alone; Send an email to every student."

Furthermore, when senior advocate SK Rungta, representing another petitioner in the matter submitted that DU should provide reading material to students and assistive devices to PwD students, the varsity submitted that it "never provides assistive devices", to which the court, yet again, took strong note and pulled it up for making contradictory submissions. The high court said that the DU had in a previous hearing said that students may approach their colleges for assistive devices.

After this exchange, the court ordered that DU would be the nodal authority to provide assistive devices and reading material to students with a rider that in cases where the university feels a student has sought assistive device despite having been provided one before, the device or its value shall be reimbursed to the university.

Even after this when DU categorically submitted that it has never provided reading material to students and that it was not the practice, the court said, "You never had OBEs, these are extraordinary times..." and when DU's counsel pleaded that the petitioners were being unreasonable, the court replied, "We never had a pandemic."

However, when DU's counsel continued to say that they only stipulated the syllabi and there were a host of resources comprising 25 thousand books for students to read from, the court was taken aback, before ordering that this submission be placed on record. The court went on to remark, "DU will provide at least one prescribed book to every student. This is an order. You have to comply."

The court, in its order, directed that any student who is unable to upload either full or a part of their answer sheets should be allowed to sit for the physical exam and students sitting for OBEs wishing to apply for PG courses at the varsity be given provisional admission. It also directed the DU to inform when they can announce results and instructed it to inform the court about issuing digital certificates to students who appear in OBEs, before adjourning the hearing till August 17.

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