Mumbai University’s 60:40 Assessment Plan For Law Students On Hold For Now; HC Says It Should Be Brought In Slowly

The Bombay High Court has restrained Mumbai University from implementing the new 60:40 assessment system for law students in the current academic year. The interim order given by Justice BR Gavai and Justice MS Karnik will ensure the university will continue using the semester-end examination of 100 marks, reports The Indian Express.

The ‘mid-season’ system was introduced for all law colleges in August-September. Instead of a 100-mark end-semester exam, it would have allowed 40 marks for internal assessments, attendance, student’s conduct in class, projects and others. The rest 60 marks will be taken from the semester-end exam.

The bench, despite terming it dynamic and aimed at improving the standards of legal education in the state, rejected it because the university introduced it in a hurry. It said the university’s decision to launch the new system all of a sudden, without giving prior notice to students and without training the faculty members or issuing guidelines to regulate the internal assessment methods, could prejudice the interests of the students.

Two writ petitions were filed challenging the new system by two final-year students of law and a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) filed by a practising lawyer, who is also a faculty member in one of the law colleges in the city. They were only objecting to the way it was being implemented and had no problems with the new evaluation system.

The university has only 43 permanent faculties for 53 law colleges, with the rest covered by visiting faculty. Despite having enough visiting faculty, they are not adequately trained to evaluate students based on internal assessments, projects and their conduct etc., the petitioners said.