New Delhi: Delhi High Court has slammed Delhi University for detaining a large number of law students on the ground of "lack of attendance" despite the varsity's failure to conduct the requisite number of classes for the sixth and final semester from January to May.

Justice Rekha Palli on Friday directed DU to hold supplementary exams after conducting within eight weeks at least 139 hours of extra classes or tutorials for all students wanting to attend such sessions and make up the shortfall in their attendance "caused only due to the faculty of law's failure to hold the mandatory minimum number of class hours in compliance with the BCI (Bar Council of India) rules."

The judgment was passed on a batch of petitions filed by final-year law students of DU challenging the arbitrary manner in which students were detained by the university this year by citing lack of attendance.

The students have produced sufficient materials to establish that the university itself had failed to conduct the minimum number of classes for the sixth semester as mandated by the BCI, which is the regulator of legal education and advocates in the country.

Advocate Himanshu Dhuper, appearing for some of the students, told the court that 450 students had been detained by DU on the ground of lack of attendance.

"The faculty of law must allow those of its students who were detained from giving their end-semester examinations due to shortage of attendance... and could not be granted any interim relief, to take their supplementary examinations for the concerned semester," Justice Rekha Palli said.

"However, it is made clear that the same would be subject to them attending the requisite number of extra classes to be organised by the faculty of law and subsequently meeting the mandatory attendance...," Justice Palli added.

The high court noted that the DU law faculty conducted 230 hours of in-class lectures for the sixth semester against the prescribed 311 hours.

The court came down heavily on DU over its "archaic" way of marking attendance.

"Having perused the original attendance records, I find that there are glaring discrepancies in the same. Firstly, it may be noted that the faculty of law as on date continues to mark attendance in the most archaic fashion on loose attendance sheets that are maintained in a most disorganised manner," the court said.

"Secondly, the attendance records of any given day reveal that the attendance of the students has not been marked properly. Not only is the students' attendance of any given day marked by multiple different pens (sometimes of various different colours), but there is also manifest overwriting in a vast majority of the records produced before this court.

"It is apparent that the students' attendance has not been reliably marked by the concerned faculty members or even by the same person, and the attendance records are frequently edited ex-post facto," the high court said.

It also expressed dismay at the failure of the BCI to scrutinise the functioning of the law colleges across the country, leading to such situations.