Shillong: A significant legal precedent has been set in Meghalaya as the High Court has delivered a judgment favoring a law student who was initially barred from examinations due to insufficient attendance. The ruling emphasizes the need for flexibility in mandatory attendance rules when genuine medical emergencies prevent students from attending classes.
The case involved Bamang Nabam, a fifth-semester student at Shillong Law College, who was prohibited from appearing in his December 2024 examinations because his attendance fell to 60%, below the stipulated 70% as per Rule 12 of the Rules of Legal Education, 2008. This drop in attendance was a direct result of a gallbladder ailment that necessitated surgery in November 2024.
Chief Justice IP Mukerji and Justice W Diengdoh, forming the division bench, critically examined the strict application of the attendance rule. Their judgment highlighted that the existing regulation did not adequately account for “extraordinary circumstances like illness or bereavement in a student’s family, natural disaster, riot strife, political upheavals, other acts of God and so on which prevent a student or students from attending classes.”
The court further acknowledged Nabam’s academic standing, noting his consistent high attendance in other subjects, including a perfect 100% in four and 85.71% in another during a period of temporary health improvement in September 2024. The bench concluded that his reduced attendance was solely due to the debilitating illness.
Consequently, the High Court directed the college authorities to consider Nabam’s attendance as regular, enabling him to be assessed in the fifth-semester examination without any attendance-related impediment. This final judgment follows an interim order issued on December 5, 2024, which had provisionally allowed Nabam to take the examinations, the results of which are currently pending.
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