The Delhi High Court has dismissed an appeal filed by a law student of the University of Delhi seeking direct admission to Semester-IV of the LL.B. programme despite having 0% attendance in Semester-III.
A Division Bench comprising Chief Justice Devendra Kumar Upadhyaya and Justice Tejas Karia held that a student who did not attend even a single class in a semester cannot claim academic progression to the next semester merely on grounds of academic continuity.
The Court observed that there is a clear distinction between ‘shortage of attendance’ and ‘nil attendance,’ and students who did not attend any classes cannot claim parity with cases where attendance was merely deficient.
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The appellant, Aman Bansal, was pursuing LL.B. from Law Centre-I, Faculty of Law, Delhi University. He had successfully cleared all papers in Semester-I with 354 marks out of 500.
However, in Semester-II, he was detained due to shortage of attendance recorded at 27.58%. Despite this, the university provisionally allowed him to appear in Semester-II examinations pending consideration by a committee constituted by the university.
Although he appeared in the examinations, his result was withheld and he was denied admission to Semester-III. Consequently, he neither attended Semester-III classes nor appeared in Semester-III examinations.
The student later approached the High Court seeking declaration of his Semester-II result and permission to continue directly into Semester-IV.
The appellant argued that under the LL.B. prospectus, promotion to Semester-III required a student to cumulatively pass at least five papers across Semester-I and Semester-II. Since he had already cleared all Semester-I papers and had appeared in Semester-II examinations with university permission, he claimed he should have been granted admission to Semester-III.
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He also argued that similarly situated students had been allowed to continue their academic progression.
The university opposed the plea and relied on an earlier Division Bench ruling in Harsh Meena v. University of Delhi, where the Court had cautioned against permitting students with no attendance to sit for examinations.
The Delhi High Court held that students cannot bypass an entire semester without attending classes.
The Bench observed:
“There is no parity between the Appellant’s case of 0% attendance and cases involving shortage of attendance.”
The Court further clarified that the earlier decision in Court on its Own Motion Re: Suicide Committed by Sushant Rohilla, Law Student of I.P. University applied only to cases involving shortage of attendance, where students had attended classes but fell short of the prescribed minimum attendance requirement. The Bench held that the ruling could not be extended to situations where students neither took admission nor attended any classes in the relevant semester.
The judges also noted that the student did not approach the Court while Semester-III was ongoing and instead sought relief only after Semester-IV had already commenced.
The Division Bench upheld the earlier single-judge order directing the university to declare the student’s Semester-II result but refused to grant admission to Semester-IV or permit supplementary examinations for Semester-III.
The appeal was accordingly dismissed without costs.
Case Title: Aman Bansal v. University of Delhi & Ors.
Case Number: LPA 361/2026
Court: Delhi High Court
Date: May 14, 2026
