The Delhi High Court has cleared the path for a visually impaired student to pursue M.Phil programme in Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) by quashing the institute’s decision to fail him in the second semester of M.A. (Persian) for not appearing in the repeat course exam.
Justice C. Hari Shankar not only granted relief to Ghalib Zeyad but also praised him for his “perseverance and hard work”.
“The accomplishments of the petitioner [Zeyad]... to which the respondents [JNU] offer no denial, clearly indicate that the petitioner is academically gifted, and has, by dint of perseverance and hard work, overcome his physical limitations. The attitude that the JNU has chosen to adopt while dealing with the case of the petitioner can only be characterised as woefully anachronistic,” Justice Shankar remarked.
Zeyad, who aspires to pursue the M.Phil. programme in JNU, is visually impaired, suffering from 100% blindness in his right eye and 50% in the left eye. While studying in the fourth semester of the M.A. (Persian) programme, he applied for repeating four courses of his second semester in order to improve his performance.
‘Violation of Ordinance’
Later, a colleague informed him that his application for permission to repeat the four courses was in violation of Ordinance 15(A) governing JNU. After this, Zeyad decided not to appear for second-semester repeat course exams. The JNU said it cannot be faulted for having treated him as failed in the four courses of his second semester as he did not appear for the same.
The Ordinance says that a student was permitted only to carry an additional load, over and above the normal load prescribed for any particular semester, up to a maximum of 50% of the credits/courses to be undertaken for that particular semester.
The court, however, said: “The petitioner could not be treated as having failed in the said four courses of his second semester merely because he failed to appear for the courses, in addition to the four courses of his fourth semester.” The judge said Zeyad’s failure to reappear cannot result in forfeiting credits earlier earned by him.
