Student's plea for grace marks rejected by HC
Advocate Rajendra on behalf of Pune varsity informed the court that as per rules, as the theory and online exams were of 50 marks each.
Mumbai: The Bombay high court has rejected the petition of an engineering student praying that he should have got grace marks in a subject as per the rules. After hearing the state, the court concluded that according to the rules, grace marks were to be granted on separate subjects and online exams, and not cumulatively as claimed by the student.
A division bench of Justice Shantanu Kemkar and Justice Prakash Naik was hearing a writ petition filed by Akshay Nalavade, a third year civil engineering student from Pune, seeking direction for Pune university to grant him three grace marks so that he could pass one of the six papers he had failed in the second year and consequently, retain his seat in the third year.
The petitioner stated that he had appeared for second year civil engineering exams in May 2016 but when results were declared on June 21, 2016, he secured a total 561 out of 1,500 marks and failed in six subjects. As he secured 10 marks in theory and 25 marks in online exam of Geotechnical Engineering, he applied for revaluation of the theory paper. After revaluation, his marks increased to 12 marks but he still failed. According to Mr Nalavade, he filed the writ petition as the university failed to give him three grace marks.
Advocate Rajendra Anbhule on behalf of Pune varsity informed the court that as per rules, as the theory and online exams were of 50 marks each, Mr Nalavade was entitled to only two and not three grace marks in the theory paper alone.
After hearing the respondent and going through the rules, the bench passed an order stating, “The contentions of the petitioner that he is entitled to get 'three' marks is incorrect. Even if 'two' grace marks are awarded to the petitioner as per ordinance 1, the petitioner would fail in the said subject as his original marks are 12 and the requirement for passing the theory paper is 15 marks. In view of this, the petitioner is not entitled to any relief as prayed for in the petition and hence, the petition deserves to be dismissed.”