Bombay HC Extends Supreme Court's One-Time Attendance Protection to All ILS Pune Law Students Barred During 2025–26

A Bombay High Court Division Bench held that roughly 41 ILS Law College students with attendance between 46% and 54.37% qualify for the Supreme Court's one-time protection and directed supplementary examinations within four weeks.

The Division Bench of Justice R.I. Chagla and Justice Farhan P. Dubash, sitting at the High Court of Judicature at Bombay, on 10 August 2026 disposed of a batch of writ petitions filed by approximately 41 students of ILS Law College, Pune, who had been barred from their semester-end examinations during the academic session 2025–26 solely because of an attendance shortfall. The students’ attendance ranged between 46% and 54.37%. The Bench held that the Supreme Court’s order dated 21 July 2026 in Prakruthi Jain v. Bar Council of India and connected matters applies to all these students, irrespective of the year or semester they were pursuing, and directed the college and Savitribai Phule Pune University to conduct supplementary examinations within four weeks. A stay of the order, sought by counsel for the college immediately after pronouncement, was declined.

The Dispute Before the High Court

The writ petitions arose from a decision of ILS Law College, affiliated to Savitribai Phule Pune University, preventing the petitioners from sitting for semester-end examinations during the 2025–26 academic year on account of insufficient attendance. The students had submitted their examination forms, paid fees, and had admit cards generated on 25 April 2026, but the college withheld those admit cards.

After the petitioners submitted representations seeking condonation, the university asked the college to reconsider. The college declined and maintained its original position. The petitioners then came to the High Court.

The petitions challenged both the college’s conduct and the interpretation of Ordinance 68 and Ordinance 70 of the university, which govern minimum attendance and the power to condone shortfalls. Rule 12 of the Rules of Legal Education, 2008, framed by the Bar Council of India, was also squarely in issue. Rule 12 prescribes a minimum attendance of 70% in each subject.

The legal landscape had shifted substantially by the time the matters came up for final hearing. On 3 November 2025, the Delhi High Court had rendered its judgment in Re: Courts on Its Own Motion in Re: Suicide Committed by Sushant Rohilla, Law Student of I.P. University (“Sushant Rohilla”), reported at 2025 SCC OnLine Del 7920. Paragraph 249 of that judgment directed that no student enrolled in a recognised law college in India should be detained or prevented from appearing for examinations solely on account of attendance shortage, pending reconsideration of attendance norms by the Bar Council of India.

When some of these writ petitions first came before the Bombay High Court on 4 May 2026, the court permitted the petitioners to appear for their semester-end examinations, subject to the final outcome. As more petitions were filed, successive similar interim orders followed. Results were subsequently directed to be declared and marksheets issued, with progression to the 2026–27 academic year allowed—all subject to further orders.

The Bar Council of India challenged the Delhi High Court’s judgment before the Supreme Court. This produced two significant orders. By its order dated 26 May 2026 in SVKM’s Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies v. Bar Council of India (SLP (Criminal) No. 9450 of 2026), the Supreme Court stayed paragraph 249 of Sushant Rohilla, but expressly made that stay prospective. It also clarified that the pendency of the Supreme Court proceedings would not prevent High Courts from deciding attendance-related matters on their own merits.

Then, on 21 July 2026, the Supreme Court passed a further order after noting that six High Courts had taken views contrary to Sushant Rohilla. It directed, as a one-time measure, that students whose academic session was ongoing when the Delhi High Court delivered its November 2025 judgment should not be detained or prevented from appearing in the final examinations for that academic session. Students who had not been able to appear, wholly or partially, were to be allowed to take a supplementary examination for that session.

By order dated 3 August 2026, the Bombay High Court appointed Mr. Shiraz Rustomjee, Senior Advocate, and Mr. Sharad Bansal, Advocate, as Amici Curiae. The matters were heard on 7 August 2026 and the order was pronounced on 10 August 2026.

The Central Interpretive Dispute

Two sharply opposed readings of the Supreme Court’s 21 July 2026 order emerged before the Bench.

The petitioners argued that the expression “final examinations for the said academic session” in paragraph 8 of that order referred to the semester-end examinations conducted during 2025–26, whatever the semester. The one-time benefit, they said, extended to all students pursuing three-year or five-year law courses during that academic year, not just those in the terminal semester or final year. They also submitted that the controversy over Ordinances 68 and 70 was effectively overtaken by the Supreme Court’s order.

The college, represented by Mr. Shailendra Kanetkar, took a narrower position. It argued that the Supreme Court’s one-time concession was available only to students in the final year or final semester of their courses, who faced the imminent consequence of being unable to complete the entire degree. Students in earlier semesters, the college contended, continued to be governed by Rule 12 and by Ordinances 68 and 70.

The college also argued that students studying in Maharashtra could not claim a bona fide belief that attendance shortage would not matter, because the Bombay High Court had itself, in several earlier matters, declined to follow Sushant Rohilla. The college relied on Unnati Rawat v. The Principal/Management, Indian Law Society’s Law College & Ors. (order dated 17 January 2026, W.P. No. 739 of 2026) and Kushagra Vijay Agrawal v. Union of India & Ors. (order dated 30 June 2026, W.P. (L) No. 16225 of 2026), both of which had applied the applicable attendance requirements and had not followed Sushant Rohilla. For the proposition that a decision of one High Court does not bind another outside its territorial jurisdiction, the college relied on the Bombay High Court’s own earlier ruling in Commissioner of Income-Tax v. Thana Electricity Supply Ltd., 1993 SCC OnLine Bom 591.

The college further maintained that admission of examination forms, payment of fees, and automatic generation of admit cards created no vested right in the petitioners, since eligibility remained subject to attendance compliance. It added that any medical certificates submitted by petitioners had been filed belatedly and were not backed by contemporaneous records.

The university, represented by Mr. Rajendra Anbhule, supported and adopted the college’s submissions.

How the Bench Reasoned

Justice Farhan P. Dubash, writing for the Bench, began by observing that the controversy had materially altered since the writ petitions were filed. At inception, the core dispute was whether the 20% condonation power under Ordinance 70 operated on the 70% minimum set by the Bar Council of India under Rule 12 (producing an effective floor of 50%) or on the 75% prescribed under the unamended Ordinance 68 (producing a floor of 55%). That dispute, the Bench concluded, did not require resolution given the Supreme Court’s subsequent order.

The Bench turned to the text of paragraphs 7 and 8 of the 21 July 2026 order. Paragraph 7 recorded the Supreme Court’s reasoning: the Delhi High Court’s judgment had diluted attendance norms and the Bar Council of India had “virtually accepted” those directions, so students acting on a bona fide belief that attendance shortage would not bar them from examinations were entitled to the benefit of doubt as a one-time measure. Paragraph 7 also used the phrase “Otherwise also” and proceeded to note that the 26 May 2026 stay had been expressly prospective.

Paragraph 8 identified the protected class: students “whose academic session was ongoing when the judgment dated 3rd November, 2025 was rendered” and who faced the consequence of being unable to appear in the “final examinations for the said academic session.”

The Bench rejected the college’s construction that “final examination” meant the terminal-year or terminal-semester examination of the law course. The controlling words, the Bench said, were those connecting the examination to the particular academic session which was ongoing on 3 November 2025, not to the stage of the student’s overall course. The order did not use the expressions “final-year students”, “final semester”, “final year examination” or “examination for completion of the law course”. To accept the college’s reading would require introducing limitations that the Supreme Court had not incorporated.

The Bench also addressed the significance of “Otherwise also” in paragraph 7. That phrase showed that the prospective operation of the 26 May 2026 stay was an additional and independent consideration. Protection therefore could not be made to depend exclusively on proof of each student’s personal, conscious reliance on Sushant Rohilla. To require individual proof of such reliance would render the second consideration otiose. The objective criteria in paragraph 8 were that the academic session was ongoing on 3 November 2025 and that the student faced detention on account of attendance shortage alone. No further subjective test was prescribed.

On the college’s argument that Maharashtra students could not have held the requisite bona fide belief because this court had itself taken contrary views, the Bench pointed out that paragraph 6 of the 21 July 2026 order had recorded precisely that objection: six High Courts had taken views contrary to the Delhi High Court. The Supreme Court was fully conscious of those contrary decisions and still issued the direction in paragraph 8 without carving out any exception for students in States where the local High Court had disagreed with Sushant Rohilla. The Supreme Court’s order neither confined itself to the Delhi High Court’s territorial jurisdiction nor excluded students studying in States where the concerned High Court had taken a contrary view.

The Bench clarified that its earlier decisions in Unnati Rawat and Kushagra Vijay Agrawal were not being overruled or departed from. Both had been decided before 21 July 2026, under the legal position then obtaining. Neither had considered, nor could have considered, the subsequent Supreme Court order. Giving effect to a later binding direction of the Supreme Court was not a departure from coordinate Bench decisions. No reference to a larger Bench was therefore required.

The Bench equally rejected the college’s reliance on Thana Electricity Supply for the inter-High Court precedent point. Relief in these proceedings did not rest on treating Sushant Rohilla as binding upon the Bombay High Court. It rested on the 21 July 2026 Supreme Court order, which is binding.

The Bench made one further point of scope. The one-time protection extends only to students who were detained solely on account of attendance. A student who was independently ineligible, had not submitted the requisite examination form, had not paid fees, was subject to disciplinary action, or had failed any independent academic requirement could not claim immunity by relying on the Supreme Court’s order.

The Bench also addressed students who had not come to court at all. The Supreme Court’s direction was framed for an objectively identified class and was not confined to those who had instituted proceedings. Accordingly, the benefit must extend to all similarly situated students of the college who were prevented from appearing solely on account of attendance during 2025–26, subject to the qualification for proceedings already finally concluded before 21 July 2026.

As for students whose writ petitions or proceedings had been finally decided before 21 July 2026, the Bench declined to pronounce upon their rights in the present proceedings. The Supreme Court’s order did not expressly direct that judgments which had attained finality stood automatically recalled or reopened, nor did it prescribe a procedural mechanism for reopening concluded proceedings. Those students were left at liberty to pursue whatever remedy may be available in law, with all questions as to maintainability, scope and effect left expressly open.

Questions on Ordinances 68 and 70 Left Open

The Bench expressly declined to resolve the interpretation dispute over Ordinances 68 and 70 and Rule 12 of the Legal Education Rules. It recorded that those questions, including the respective rights and contentions of the parties, remain open for an appropriate case in the future. Nothing in the judgment dilutes Rule 12 or those Ordinances in respect of any other academic session. Students pursuing legal education continue to remain bound by the applicable attendance requirements for all other years.

Order

The writ petitions were disposed of with the following operative directions:

All petitioners whose academic session was ongoing on 3 November 2025 and who were prevented from appearing for semester-end examinations during 2025–26 solely on account of attendance shortage are entitled to the one-time protection under the Supreme Court’s 21 July 2026 order. The same benefit extends to other similarly situated students of the college, except those whose proceedings on the same subject matter had already been finally concluded before 21 July 2026.

The university and the college are directed, in coordination, to arrange and conduct a supplementary examination for petitioners and similarly situated students who were unable to appear for their semester-end examinations, wholly or partially, during 2025–26 solely on account of attendance shortage. The supplementary examination must be held as expeditiously as possible and in any event within four weeks of the date on which the judgment is uploaded. The university and college must forthwith intimate all such students of the schedule and provide all necessary particulars.

Students who clear the requisite examinations will be eligible to secure admission to the 2026–27 academic year, subject to the university’s prevailing Ordinances and the college’s applicable rules. Petitioners who already passed semester-end examinations pursuant to interim orders and progressed to 2026–27 have their academic progression confirmed; it is not to be disturbed solely on account of the attendance shortfall covered by the one-time protection.

The controversy concerning the interpretation of Rule 12 of the Legal Education Rules and Ordinances 68 and 70 is not decided and all questions in that regard remain open for an appropriate case. All pending interim applications are disposed of. No order as to costs.

The application by the college’s counsel for a stay of the order, made immediately after pronouncement in open court, was declined.