The Bombay High Court has directed the state government to inform all universities that continued the ‘continuation’ scheme that allows students to advance backlogs of unsettled or failed examinations, and not implement the same for the academic year 2025-26, except in cases where the benefit has already been extended to some students.
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The directive was issued after the court was told on Tuesday that the ‘continuation’ regime introduced through a circular dated January 17 and the government’s decision issued on February 10 is limited to the 2024-2025 academic year. Despite this, four universities continued the scheme for the 2025-2026 academic year, which the council found “contrary to the spirit of the general rules and generalization”.
The four universities include Kavitri Bahinbhai Chaudhary University of North Maharashtra, Jalgaon; Bunyaslok Ahilyadevi Holkar University Solapur, Solapur; St. Judge Baba Amravati University, Amravati and Shivaji University, Kolhapur.
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A division bench of Justices Ravindra V Ghuge and Ashwin D Bhobe clarified that the academic results of students who availed the scheme for 2025-26 will be subject to the outcome of the petition filed by an LLB student of Savitribai Phule Pune University (SPPU). The petitioner sought provisional admission to LLB in the third year despite his backlog in the first year.
SPPU provided special opportunities for second-year students with first-year backlogs, allowing them to take provisional admission into the third year for 2025-2026. This was also extended to the second-year students’ backlog for the fourth year, and the backlogged third-year students were allowed provisional admission in the fifth year.
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The HC observed that the petitioner had failed in all eight subjects and later passed one subject in re-evaluation and two others with grace marks, but ultimately failed five subjects in the first year. However, the SPPU’s lawyer clarified that its decision would not apply to students who failed the re-evaluation.
The SPPU and the state government informed the SC on September 22 that several non-agricultural universities in Maharashtra followed a similar GR-based policy. The UNHCR then raised concerns that monitoring such a scheme prima facie would “not advance the cause of quality and quality education”.
On November 11, after perusing the state government’s affidavit, which said that letters written by people’s representatives led to the introduction of the ‘continuation’ facility, the bench observed, “Prima facie, we fail to understand the reason and logic behind introducing the ‘continuation’ facility for the academic year 2024-2025, four years into the Covid-19 pandemic, when several students had already appeared for examinations and fainted, in the interregnum.”
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The court was told that apart from the four universities in question, no other university had introduced ‘continuation’ facilities.
The court found that “it is clear that the four aforementioned universities apparently misread” the general and international circular in question, which was limited to the College of Engineering only, but became applicable to all colleges and continued unchanged for the academic year 2025-2026.
The UNHCR said it would later evaluate whether other universities had followed the “continuation” system. “There was no dispute that the general system was intended to extend this benefit only for the 2024-2025 academic year.”
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Post the publication of the next hearing on December 10, the HC directed the state to approach all universities not to implement the ‘continuation’ regime for the ongoing academic year 2025-26 and also sought affidavits in response from the universities.
(Tags for translation) Bombay High Court
