The Delhi University on Monday informed the Delhi High Court that it had constituted a committee for proposing charges for issuance of digital degree certificate on whose recommendations, it is charging Rs 750 from the students for whom the printed degree has not been issued and Rs 1,000 from the students for whom the printed degree has been issued.
The DU, represented by advocate Mohinder Rupal, told Justice Pratibha Singh that the reason behind charging the students for the digital degrees is that several people have to be employed to process these degrees. He also said that since the timeline is too short, the varsity is adopting these measures, there won’t be any need for charging more.
“…but I can’t say anything right now. We have to do it on war footing,” he said.
However, the court said that the students should not be charged for the digital degrees and that they should be free of cost.
“There is a problem. I think degree certificates should be given free of cost. Paper is costing more, there you are not charging but for creating an electronic degree , you are charging!,” the bench remarked.
It asked the Delhi University as to whether issuance of digital degree certificates will be made an annual regular feature or it is only for this academic year after the students raised several grievances on the imposition of an exorbitant fee proposed to be charged for the provision of digital degrees.
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The court was hearing a plea by a few students who had moved to the court seeking directions to the University to declare their results and issue the degrees.
Appearing for the students, their counsel Sarthak Maggon, told the court that the University, in their consolidated annual fee charged to the students, already accounts for provision of degree certificates/migration certificates and hence they should not be permitted to charge students for providing a digital copy of the same degree.
He said that such a charge imposes additional burden on the students and it would be exorbitant given that production of digital degrees after putting into place the appropriate format must not be chargeable at par with physical printed degrees since the nature of production and procurement of such degrees is cost effective once the technical infrastructure has been appropriately set up.
The varsity in its affidavit has justified the charges of digital degree, stating that it has adopted General Financial Regulations, 2017 regarding transactions involving financial implications which makes the user Charges as an essential component of the non- tax revenues.
During the hearing, the judge also sought to know whether the transmission of data for uploading on Digilocker with respect to all the students in all courses of DU is going to be followed in feature and if so, within what timelines.
The court said that there has to be a proper timeline for uploading the data while adding that, immediately upon declaration of results, a digital degree is being generated within a period of one month and that data should be transmitted to the Digilocker.
The matter would be now heard on December 23.
Courtesy: Hindustan Times
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