Open book exams: Delhi HC asks DU to respond to plea on non-cooperation

The Delhi High Court Thursday sought response of the Delhi University on a plea by the Grievance Redressal Committee, set up in connection with the ongoing online Open Book Examination (OBE) for final year courses, claiming that the varsity was not cooperating with its functioning.

Justice Prathiba M Singh issued notice to the university on the committee's application and listed the matter for further hearing on Friday.

The high court had on August 7 given its nod for conducting online OBE and reconstituted the Grievance Redressal Committee (GRC) under the aegis of retired judge, Justice Prathiba Rani.

It had said the panel will function till OBE continues and the students' complaints need to be addressed within five days.

The online OBE started from August 10 and will continue August 31.

The GRC, in its plea through one of its member and advocate Kamal Gupta, sought to inform the high court that the university has not been complying with any of the directions issued by the court which was making it difficult for the panel to fulfil the responsibilities.

It sought direction to the varsity to implement the court's direction qua GRC.

The counsel for the petitioner students, advocates Akash Sinha and Shubham Saket also supported the GRC's application and stated that the varsity has not been complying with the court's order.

Delhi University has also challenged the single judge's August 7 order and it is scheduled to come up for hearing before a division bench of the high court on Friday.

The other members of GRC included Professor K S Rao, Professor Kavita Sharma, senior advocate B B Gupta and lawyer Kamal Gupta.

The GRC was directed by the court to deal with all the grievances of the students in respect of downloading of question papers, uploading of answer sheets, technical glitches, delays in uploading and any other issues faced by students during the conduct of the OBE examinations.

The varsity was also directed to handover the password for the grievance redressal email account to the Chairperson of the committee, that is, Justice Rani.

The court had directed that adequate arrangements be made by the Dean (Examinations) of the university to enable the committee to meet virtually or in his office.