The Bombay High Court has demanded from Mithibai College why the facts pertaining to allowing students with 60 percent attendance to take the semester IV examination were not disclosed to the court in its affidavit filed earlier in the month in a petition filed by a student with 59.2 percent attendance.

The student had sought a directive to Mithibai college to allow her to take the semester examination as the college had deemed students with 69 percent attendance eligible for the examination and also promoted them.

As Mithibai College had not disclosed this in its affidavit, the court gave the college some time to take adequate steps.

A division bench of Justice S J Kathawalla and Justice N R Borkar, while hearing the petition filed by the Semester IV student via video conferencing on Friday, was informed that the rules called for a minimum attendance of 75 percent. 

However, the college had permitted students with attendance as low as 60 percent to take the examination. The petitioner said that since she had an attendance of 58.9 percent, she should be treated on the same lines as students with 60 percent attendance.

The Principal of the college agreed that students with 60 percent attendance had taken the examination. However, he could not explain why this fact had not been disclosed to the court in an affidavit filed by the college in response to the petition on 18 June.

In the affidavit, it was mentioned that students with less than 75% of attendance had to take re-admission in the same semester the next year. The affidavit also denied that the college had allowed “Students having attendance of 59% to appear in the examination”.

However, in the written submissions filed by the college, it concurred that students with 60 percent attendance had been allowed to take the examination. The decision had been taken on 6 March.

When Justice Kathawalla asked why the 6 March decision had been left out of the affidavit, the college said that it had been missed out as instructions for the affidavit were given over the telephone. However, the judge was not convinced, as the affidavit had been signed by the Principal.

The court then gave the college time to take steps in the matter, before adjourning the case until 29 June.