Mumbai: The Bombay high court on Friday came down heavily on Mumbai University for its submission on shortage of staff to justifying a new ‘60-40 evaluation system’ for Law students.
In an affidavit filed through its registrar, the university said that, in the past, exam results had been delayed because of shortage of staff to evaluate answer sheets. The affidavit further said that it had introduced the new evaluation system, comprising a semester-end exam for 60 marks and internal assessments, class projects etc for 40 marks, to avoid delays in evaluation of examination papers and the declaration of results.
The affidavit stated that for the 53 Law colleges under its jurisdiction, the university only had 47 permanent teachers. It also said that often guest lecturers and lawyers had to fill in to conduct classes in these colleges.
The division bench of Justice B.R. Gavai and M.S. Karnik expressed their displeasure over university’s submission on the shortage of staff. “Why don’t you put a lock and close down the university?” asked the bench.
“What sort of an explanation is this?” the judges further asked adding that if the court too, when facing a shortage of judges should ask lawyers to preside over cases and pass judgments.
The judge’s observation came during the hearing of a bunch of petitions filed by a practising lawyer, and a law student from the university, challenging the 60-40 evaluation system for the three-year and five-year LLB courses.
The petitioners also challenged a similar system introduced for the five-year BBA-LLB (Bachelor of Business Administration and Law) course. For BBA-LLB, 75 percent ma-rks depend on semester exams and the remaining on internal assessme-nts, projects, attendance etc. The petitioners have said, among other things, that the new evaluation system lowers the standards of education and the examination system.
The university's counsel, advocate Rui Rodrig-ues, however, argued before the court that the new system was not hampering the standard of education imparted or the examinations conducted for the students. The bench is likely to continue the hearing on Monday.
