In the wake of advocation of women’s rights also the much essential fundamental rights , Ankita Meena a final year law student of DU who gave birth to a boy in February this year lacks the required 70% attendance fixed by the bar council of India ( the regulatory body for advocates and legal education in India )as the minimum , a student must have to be able to appear in exams . Now on these grounds Ankita Meena stands detained by the university due to lack of required attendance whereas Ankita holding her stand said the decision was a stringe violation of her fundamental right to reproduce children as she had mostly been absent on maternity grounds .
Well since quite long the denial of authorities to allow students with low attendance to appear for exams has been a disputed issue for students particularly the ones with genuine personal reasons for not attending classes quite regularly . In the case of Ankita too , maternity leave comes out as one such major aspect in advocating her rights the student has now moved to the top court because the university authorities are not allowing her to sit for the fourth demister because of lack of attendance .
Ankita being a final year student had cleared 15 out of 20 paper that a law student should pass to be eligible for the third year but the need of the hour for Ankita is that she needs to clear the backlog of five papers through her fourth semister exam before she clears all the papers in final year and graduates .
Ankita continues to stand by her appeal and says that the denial ammounts to violation of the fundamental rights as the denial to the maternity benefit to the petitioner would be in severe violation of fundamental rights under article 14 (right to equality ) and Article 21(right to life and liberty ) by the constitution as the petitioner has the right to reproduce and would be at detriment only on account of her gender , she said in her petition filled through advocate Himanshu Dhuper.lately a bench of justices kuriam Joseph and A.M khanwilkar allowed the third year student to attend classes subject to final outcome of the case “Issue notice, the petitioner is permitted to attend classes at her own risk, on completion of the required formalities,” the bench said while seeking the university’s response.
With continous series of judgements , last month a Delhi high court division bench had endorsed a single judge bench’s May 15 order that sustained varsity’s order to detain Ankita and many such students who lacked the attendance . Quite adamantly Ankita went ahead and challenged the varsity’s decision but the apex court had refused to pass any interim order in her favour , ,fleshing the decision court stated that “academic discipline” could not be infringed also the time was too short to pass any order as eventually the exam was scheduled on the same day . Apart from pregnancy Ankita also states that she had missed classes due to teachers strike . Well in so far as this case is concerned it brings out the major clash between asserted university norms and pleas of certain students for a larger space for exceptions under these norms which at times might affect the future and also the present status quo of their rights .
Shocking