Bombay High Court Protects Law Students Detained for Attendance Shortage; Orders Supplementary Exams Within Four Weeks and Allows Successful Students to Progress Academically Without Detention
Bombay High Court Orders Supplementary Exams for Law Students Barred Over Attendance Shortage; Successful Students Entitled to Admission for Academic Year 2026–27
Facts
The batch of writ petitions before the Bombay High Court concerned approximately 41 students of ILS Law College, affiliated to Savitribai Phule Pune University, pursuing different years of the three-year and five-year law courses during academic year 2025–26. Their attendance ranged approximately between 46% and 54.37%.
The students had submitted their examination forms and paid the examination fees, and their admit cards were generated. However, the College withheld the admit cards because the students had failed to fulfil the prescribed minimum attendance requirement. Their requests for condonation were unsuccessful, leading them to approach the High Court.
The petitions arose against the backdrop of the Delhi High Court’s judgment in Re: Courts on Its Own Motion in Re: Suicide Committed by Sushant Rohilla, Law Student of I.P. University, which had directed that students of recognised law colleges should not be prevented from appearing for examinations or progressing academically solely because of shortage of attendance. The students also challenged the interpretation and application of Rule 12 of the Rules of Legal Education, 2008 and Ordinances 68 and 70 of Savitribai Phule Pune University.
During the pendency of the petitions, the Supreme Court first stayed paragraph 249 of Sushant Rohilla on 26 May 2026, but expressly made the stay prospective. Thereafter, on 21 July 2026, the Supreme Court granted a one-time protection to students whose academic session was ongoing when Sushant Rohilla was delivered, directing that they should not be detained or prevented from appearing in the final examinations for that academic session. Students who had missed examinations wholly or partly were to be permitted to take supplementary examinations.
The Bombay High Court was therefore required to determine the scope of the Supreme Court’s subsequent protection and its application to the petitioners.
Issues
The principal issues were:
- Whether the Supreme Court’s order dated 21 July 2026 applied to the petitioners despite their attendance shortage.
- Whether the expression “final examinations for the said academic session” meant only examinations of final-year/final-semester students or semester-end examinations concluding academic year 2025–26 generally.
- Whether students had to individually prove that they actually relied upon Sushant Rohilla and genuinely believed that attendance shortage would not prevent them from appearing.
- Whether the Supreme Court’s protection extended to students in Maharashtra despite earlier Bombay High Court decisions taking a view contrary to Sushant Rohilla.
- Whether similarly situated students who had not approached any Court were also entitled to the one-time protection.
- Whether the Court needed to decide the underlying controversy concerning Rule 12 of the Legal Education Rules and Ordinances 68 and 70 of the University.
Petitioners’ Arguments
The petitioners contended that Rule 12 of the Legal Education Rules prescribed 70% attendance, while Ordinance 70 permitted condonation of shortage up to 20%. According to them, the 20% condonation should operate on the applicable 70% requirement, resulting in an effective threshold of 50%, rather than the 55% asserted by the College.
More importantly, they relied upon the Supreme Court’s order dated 21 July 2026 and argued that they squarely fell within the class granted one-time protection.
They submitted that “final examinations for the said academic session” meant the semester-end examinations for academic year 2025–26, rather than only the terminal examinations of the entire law course. Therefore, the benefit could not be confined to final-year or final-semester students.
The petitioners who had already appeared pursuant to interim orders sought confirmation of their results and academic progression.
Those who had not received interim relief and consequently missed their examinations sought supplementary examinations and admission to academic year 2026–27 upon successfully clearing them.
Respondents’ Arguments
ILS Law College opposed the petitions and argued that Rule 12 required 70% attendance in each subject, with only a limited relaxation where a student had at least 65% attendance in the concerned subject and 70% aggregate attendance. According to the College, none of the petitioners satisfied these requirements.
The College further contended that even under Ordinances 68 and 70, attendance below 55% could not be condoned.
It argued that the Supreme Court’s one-time concession applied only to students in the final year or final semester, who otherwise faced losing the opportunity to complete their course.
The College also maintained that Maharashtra students could not claim bona fide reliance upon the Delhi High Court judgment because the Bombay High Court had already taken contrary views in several attendance cases.
Further, Sushant Rohilla was not binding on the Bombay High Court because a judgment of one High Court has only persuasive value outside its territorial jurisdiction.
Savitribai Phule Pune University supported and adopted the College’s submissions.
Analysis of the Law
1. Supreme Court’s Order Controlled the Outcome
The High Court found that the controversy had materially changed after the Supreme Court’s order of 21 July 2026.
The Supreme Court had objectively identified the protected class: students whose academic session was ongoing on 3 November 2025 and who faced detention or loss of that session because of attendance shortage.
The Bombay High Court therefore held that the Supreme Court’s order applied to all the petitioners notwithstanding their attendance shortage.
2. “Final Examination” Does Not Mean Only Final-Year Examination
A central issue was the meaning of “final examination.”
The High Court rejected the College’s argument that this meant only final-year or final-semester examinations.
Read contextually, “final examination” meant the examination concluding the particular academic session. Thus, semester-end examinations in the second, fourth, sixth, eighth or tenth semesters could qualify depending upon the course and year involved.
The Supreme Court had not used expressions such as “final-year students,” “final semester” or “examination for completion of the law course.” The Bombay High Court held that it could not insert restrictions that the Supreme Court itself had not imposed.
3. Individual Proof of Reliance Was Unnecessary
The Court also rejected the proposition that each student had to prove that he or she personally read or relied upon Sushant Rohilla.
The operative Supreme Court direction prescribed objective criteria, not a subjective inquiry into each student’s state of mind.
Requiring individual proof would impermissibly add another condition to the class of beneficiaries identified by the Supreme Court.
4. Relief Was Not Geographically Restricted
The College argued that Maharashtra students could not claim the benefit because the Bombay High Court had previously taken a different view.
The Court rejected this argument.
The Supreme Court was already conscious that six High Courts had taken views contrary to the Delhi High Court when it granted the one-time relief. Nevertheless, it imposed no territorial limitation.
Accordingly, students in Maharashtra could not be excluded from the protected class.
5. Relief Extended Beyond Students Who Approached Court
The High Court gave the Supreme Court’s order broader practical effect by holding that an eligible student could not be denied protection merely because he or she had not instituted court proceedings.
Thus, similarly situated students of the College who were prevented from appearing during 2025–26 solely because of attendance shortage were also entitled to the benefit, subject to the qualification concerning proceedings already finally concluded before 21 July 2026.
6. Attendance Rules Were Not Diluted for Future Years
The Court expressly emphasised that the protection was strictly a one-time measure confined to academic year 2025–26.
Nothing in the judgment diluted Rule 12 of the Legal Education Rules or Ordinances 68 and 70 for subsequent academic sessions. Law students would continue to remain bound by otherwise applicable attendance requirements.
Precedent Analysis
Re: Courts on Its Own Motion in Re: Suicide Committed by Sushant Rohilla, Law Student of I.P. University
The Delhi High Court had directed that law students should not be prevented from appearing for examinations or progressing academically solely because of attendance shortage pending reconsideration of attendance norms.
However, the Bombay High Court expressly clarified that it was not granting relief because Sushant Rohilla constituted a binding precedent upon it. Instead, that judgment formed the factual and legal background for the subsequent binding Supreme Court order.
SVKM’s Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies v. Bar Council of India
On 26 May 2026, the Supreme Court stayed paragraph 249 of Sushant Rohilla, but expressly made its stay prospective. This prospective operation became an important factor in protecting students affected during the intervening academic session.
Prakruthi Jain v. Bar Council of India
The Supreme Court’s order dated 21 July 2026 became the decisive authority.
It granted a one-time benefit of doubt to students affected by the uncertainty created after Sushant Rohilla, protecting students whose academic session was ongoing when that judgment was delivered and providing supplementary examinations where necessary.
Unnati Rawat v. Principal/Management, Indian Law Society’s Law College & Ors.
The College relied upon this earlier Bombay High Court decision, where a student with 45% attendance was denied condonation.
The Court distinguished it because Unnati Rawat had been decided before the Supreme Court’s binding order dated 21 July 2026. It therefore could not govern the present batch.
Commissioner of Income-Tax v. Thana Electricity Supply Ltd.
This precedent was relied upon for the principle that a decision of one High Court is not binding upon another High Court outside its territorial jurisdiction.
The Court did not dispute that principle. Instead, it clarified that the operative relief was based upon the binding Supreme Court order, not upon treating the Delhi High Court’s judgment as binding.
Court’s Reasoning
The Bombay High Court held that the Supreme Court had deliberately protected students by reference to the academic session, rather than their year or semester of study.
A student in an earlier year could lose an entire academic session just as a final-year student could. There was therefore no justification for reading a final-year restriction into the Supreme Court’s order.
Similarly, requiring proof that each student had personally relied upon Sushant Rohilla would introduce a subjective requirement absent from the Supreme Court’s operative directions.
The Court therefore held that the Supreme Court’s one-time protection applied to the petitioners notwithstanding their attendance percentages. Consequently, it considered it unnecessary to decide whether the applicable condonable attendance threshold under Rule 12 and Ordinances 68 and 70 was 50% or 55%. That question was expressly kept open for an appropriate case.
For students who had already appeared pursuant to interim orders, the Court held that their results must be declared, marksheets issued and academic progression preserved.
Students who had been unable to appear were entitled to supplementary examinations and could not be required to repeat their semester merely because of the attendance shortfall covered by the Supreme Court’s one-time protection.
Conclusion
The Bombay High Court disposed of the writ petitions by extending the Supreme Court’s one-time attendance protection for academic year 2025–26 to the petitioners and other similarly situated students of ILS Law College.
The Court directed the College and Savitribai Phule Pune University to conduct supplementary examinations for students who had missed their semester-end examinations wholly or partly within four weeks from uploading of the judgment.
Students successfully clearing those examinations were held eligible to secure admission to academic year 2026–27, subject to the applicable rules governing academic progression. Students who had already passed pursuant to interim orders had their progression confirmed and protected from disturbance merely because of their 2025–26 attendance shortage.
The Court expressly left open the substantive controversy regarding Rule 12 of the Legal Education Rules and Ordinances 68 and 70, making clear that its ruling was confined to the exceptional one-time protection for 2025–26.
The College sought a stay after pronouncement of the order, but the High Court refused to grant stay.
Case Details
Case: Aniruddha Gaurav Gursal & Anr. v. State of Maharashtra & Ors. with connected matters
Court: High Court of Judicature at Bombay, Civil Appellate Jurisdiction
Case Number: Interim Application No. 5058 of 2026 in Writ Petition No. 6027 of 2026 with connected Writ Petitions and Interim Applications
Judges: Justice R. I. Chagla and Justice Farhan P. Dubash
Date: 10 August 2026
Result: One-time attendance protection granted for academic year 2025–26; existing results and academic progression protected; supplementary examinations directed within four weeks; substantive attendance-rule controversy kept open; College’s request for stay refused.
