Law students will have to spend one more year to clear backlog

NEW DELHI: Students of law, who might have failed in any of the papers in the previous semesters, will not be able to write failed papers again after the conclusion of the final exams of the sixth semester as per the Delhi University provision of second supplementary examinations. With this, new regulation of supplementary examinations in law faculty, students will have to invest an extra year to clear their backlog papers.

According to the new regulation, the students will have to sit as private students along with regular students to qualify their backlog papers 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. “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,” Mohit added.

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 overburden them.”