Delhi High Court on Thursday directed Delhi University to take immediate steps to draw up the protocol for issuing degree certificates, marksheets and transcripts online with digital signatures and security features.

The high court remarked that the degree certificates are taking time to be issued because of the delay in convocation, delay in sending of data, and degree certificates for several years have not been given to the students by the Delhi University (DU).

Justice Prathiba M. Singh, who was holding the hearing through video conferencing, issued notice to National Academic Depository (NAD), which is a digital database of academic awards provided by the central government, and asked a senior official to join the proceedings on the next date to update the court about the agreement entered between NAD and DU.

The high court asked the NAD to also apprise it about the status of the data to be received by the university.

“Since the NAD is a unique feature and to act as a national depository for academic records to make it easily accessible to the students, the same should be utilised effectively by the DU and immediate steps be taken by the DU for transferring all the existing data relating to the students to the NAD,” the judge said.

The high court directed the university to “immediately take steps to draw up the protocol for issuance of degree certificates and other documents, including marksheets and transcripts along with digital signatures and security features”.

The high court passed the order while hearing a petition by five doctors who graduated from their MBBS course at Lady Hardinge Medical College, which is a part of Faculty of Medical Sciences, DU.

They graduated in 2018 but have not received their degree certificates till date.

The petitioners, represented through advocate Sarthak Maggon, submitted that they wish to apply for their residency programmes in the United States and to sit in the United States Medical Licensing Examination (USMLE).

They said August 15 is the last date by which the degree certificates would have to be uploaded for processing to the “My ECFMG” mobile application.

Joint director of DU computer centre, Sanjeev Singh, informed the high court that he would be able to place the protocol on record within five days. The court said that in the process of preparing a protocol for issuance of digital degree certificates, marksheets and transcripts, if the university requires any technical assistance, it is permitted to contact officers of the high court’s information technology department.

The court, which listed the matter for further hearing on August 4, directed that the university official should positively get a digital signature for himself before the next date so that the degrees can be emailed to the petitioners through his digital signature.

“I do not want the doctors to come to DU in any manner, So you email them their degrees,” Justice Singh said.

Dean (examination) Vinay Gupta and the joint director of the computer centre, who were present during the hearing, submitted that due to urgency they have issued a short tender for printing the degree certificates and it will be opened on August 3 and steps are being taken in an expeditious manner.

On Wednesday, the court had directed the university to take a pragmatic approach and seriously consider the option of setting up a special cell for entertaining students’ issues of digital certificates, marksheets and transcripts.