Law students move HC, seek results or Rs 10L

MUMBAI: Upset over the delay in announcement of results, three final-year students pursuing law have filed a writ petition in the Bombay high court demanding that the results be declared within three days or they be paid Rs 10 lakh as compensation.
Petitioners Sachin Pawar, Abhishek Bhat and Ravishekhar Pandey—all students of law colleges in the city—have claimed that they were unable to apply for post-graduate courses or even jobs because their final exam results are yet to be announced.
“Not just law results or just the three of us, lakhs of students like us have been affected by the delay in declaration of results on part of the university. We are losing out on an academic year or even jobs because we do not have our final results yet,” said Pawar.
All three of them wanted to apply to national and foreign universities but have missed the deadlines.
A prayer in the student’s petition said, “To direct the respondents to pay each of the petitioners an amount of Rs 10,00,000 by way of compensation on account of loss suffered due to loss of educational and employment opportunities and mental agonies suffered by them...”
Apart from the compensation, the students have also demanded that an inquiry be set up by a retired judge of the Supreme Court or a retired high court chief justice to investigate reasons for the delay. They also want disciplinary and penal action to be taken against those responsible for it. That apart, they have sought that a high level expert committee be set up to monitor declaration of results every year.
“It isn’t only this year that the university has not announced the results in the stipulated period of 45 days. The vice-chancellor and the education minister must resign for putting the future of so many students at risk,” said Pawar.
The petitioners have also demanded that notifications be issued to other universities in Maharashtra to admit students in post-graduate courses by creating additional seats for them.