Respected Vice Chancellor,

We hope this response finds you in good health. This is regarding Annexure-II of the Scheme for
Examination & Evaluation, 2020 (“the Scheme”) made based on recommendations of a
committee constituted by the Vice-Chancellor under the Chairmanship of Prof. Dr. Ghayur Alam
and consisting Prof. Dr. Rajiv Khare, Prof. Dr. U. P. Singh, Prof. Dr. Raka Arya, and Prof. Dr.
Sushma Sharma (“the Committee”) shared with us by the Registrar via an email dated 26 May
2020.

We, the following students from batch of 2021 aggrieved by the issue of attendance are
submitting this response in addition to a general representation sent by our fellow batchmates
though an email dated _______.

At the outset we seek clarification on the point that whether the attendance used for the purposes
of evaluation would be the aggregate attendance or subject-wise. Either ways, we would like to
call your attention to the magnitude of our distress by pointing out the number of students
adversely affected by the attendance criteria provided in the Scheme. As per the attendance list
notified by the University wide an email dt. 17.3.2020, 61 students have an aggregate attendance
of less than 75%, meaning thereby that about half of our batch would be losing out 40 marks
from the total. If the attendance is being considered subject- wise the concern is even larger with
60+ students in each subject having an attendance less than 75%, with a total of 97 students
being affected by this measure.

We find the decision of the University of reserving 10 marks per subject for attendance and
considering a student’s attendance only till the 13.3.2020 grossly unfair, adding to our agony in
these difficult times. Our concerns and proposed solutions are as below-

Concerns

1. Unforeseen circumstances prevented the students from planning their attendance

We believe that marks given for attendance are a proper method of evaluation when
regular classes are held and students are aware of the policy from the beginning of the
term thus having the whole term to be able to achieve their target attendance. We believe
that these circumstances were unseen by everyone and the students were not able to plan
their attendance the way they can in regular circumstances. So, marking attendance till
 just 13.3. 2020 is unfair as it marks people only for a portion of the term when the
students were not able to plan for it as they were not aware of these circumstances.

2. Deemed Attendance should be included

The UGC Guidelines on Examinations and Academic Calendar (“UGC Guidelines”) dt.
29.4.2020 advice universities that with respect to minimum percentage of attendance for
the students, the period of lockdown may be treated as deemed to be attended by all
students/ research scholars. The UGC in its guidelines has asked the universities to keep
the best interests of students in mind while formulating their response to the challenge
posed by the pandemic and called for transpareny in adoption of these guidelines. This
makes it clear that the intention of this guideline is to provide relief to students failing to
meet attendance requirements owing to the unforeseeable pandemic outbreak.
The Scheme notified by the University provides for deemed attendance as per point
General point 1. However for the calculation of attendance for the purposes of evaluation,
attendance only uptil 13.3.2020 is being counted. This decision renders the provision of
deemed attendance nugatory and goes against the very spirit of UGC Guidelines.
We represent that if the administration believes that attendance should be a part of the
marking scheme, then the deemed attendance should be included.

3. Quadrupling the marks allocated for attendance is an unforeseen detriment to

grades
According to the Scheme released by the Committee, marks for attendance have been
increased from 10 marks for overall attendance in all subjects to 10 marks for attendance
in individual subjects. This takes up the total marks allocated for attendance to 40,
quadrupling the original score. Considering, that this policy has never been used for the
Batch of 2021, the students had not planned their attendance accordingly. Suddenly
increasing the marks allocated for attendance to be such a big portion of the grade will
have a detrimental effect on the grades of students. This may have far reaching
consequences affecting post graduation applications, placement rankings to name a few.
 4. The evaluation is not similar across all courses
According to point 7 of the UGC Guidelines under the Examination head, it lays down
that the modalities for examination and other related activities be applied uniformly
across all courses in a university. However, a quick reference to Annexure III of the
Notification shows that the other courses provided by the University, MSCLIS and LLM,
have similar related evaluation activities of research-based projects and dissertations but
do not have the same requirement as B.A. LL.B. courses to have a significant portion
marked on the attendance of just a few days of the trimester thus putting the students of
B.A. LLB is an disadvantaged position.

5. No opportunity for covering up attendance

An analysis of other law schools1 which take attendace into consideration for the
purposes of marking and are continuing to do so for the current evaluation reveals, that
these schools were able to conduct online classes during the lockdown. Students of these
colleges thus had an opportunity to make up for the shortage in their attendance by
attending these online classes. However for our batch, no such online classes could be
scheduled thus giving us no opportunity to cover up our attendance.

Alternative Solutions

For the redressal of our grievance we propose the following solutions-

1. Marks for attendance to not be counted for this term

Our primary solution would be, in reference to the pattern being followed by other law
schools (like NLUO)2 that the marks for the attendance can be removed for this term and
allocated in some other aspect of the evaluation scheme. Or;

1
Refer to screenshots of emails by the administration in NLS and MNLU attached with this email
2
Refer to screenshot of email by the administration in NLUO
2. Deemed attendance be considered for marking
The Deemed attendance that the college is awarding for online classes that have been
held during the lockdown period, in accordance with UGC Guideline, should be included
in the marking in addition to the attendance of the students till 13.3.2020. Or,

3. Marks allocated for attendance to remain what they were (10 overall)

The Batch of 2021 has always been marked for their attendance out of 10 for all four
subjects on an overall percentage. We believe that the same should be reinstalled and the
balance be marked in the existing evaluation scheme under some other factor.