AKTU Carry-Over Rules

If you score below 40 percent aggregate, or otherwise fail the passing conditions in clause 9.1, you are graded F. Clause 14.2(a) sets out what happens next: “A student obtaining Grade ‘F’ in a subject shall be considered failed in that subject and will be required to reappear in the examination.” That subject is a carry-over paper until you clear it.

Clause 11.1 sets out how carry-over papers are handled. Rule (a) covers a straightforward fail: “A candidate who satisfies the requirements of clause 9.1 (a) and 9.1 (b) will be required to appear in those theory papers / practical during respective end semester exams in which he/she failed.” Rule (d) adds that you sit the version of the paper running for students currently in that semester, not an old paper from when you first took it. Clause 11.2 fixes when this happens: “All carryover examinations shall be held only with end semester examination.” There is no separate carry-over sitting outside the normal exam calendar.

Clause 10.1 removes any bar to moving from an odd semester into the following even semester, so a single carry-over paper never blocks that step. Moving from an even semester into the next academic year is different: clause 10.2 says you qualify if either semester of that academic year is fully cleared, or if you earned credits at or above a minimum threshold in at least one of the two semesters. The table below sets out the credit thresholds stated in the B.Tech Ordinance 2018-19 (Revised), in force since session 2018-19 and still the version AKTU links as of September 2026, with each clause linked to that PDF.

The ordinance’s own worked example for the second row: “Total credit earned by student is 18(10+8) therefore he / she is eligible for promotion from 1st to 2nd year.” The student carries over whatever subjects they failed, but still moves up a year. Falling short of the 5.0 SGPA condition in the third row, even with no outright fail, triggers the improvement exam route under clause 14.2(b) rather than a straightforward pass.

Annexure I covers what happens when a student is detained, meaning they neither cleared the semester nor met the minimum credit threshold for it. A student detained in an odd semester can choose to abandon just that semester rather than the whole year, governed by clause 9.3 to 9.5. If they then meet the promotion threshold from the even semester’s credits alone, under clause 10.2, they are re-admitted the next year to retake only the odd semester they missed, not both semesters again.

The ordinance gives a worked example: a student detained in the 3rd semester of session 2019-20 is allowed to study semester 4 as normal under clause 10.1. If they score 21 credits in semester 4, they meet the promotion threshold from clause 10.2, the same rule as the fourth row of the table above. They then take re-admission in session 2020-21, but only for semester 3, sitting it as the odd semester of that year. Their year 2 result, the YGPA, is only declared after that odd semester exam is complete, and they move into semester 5 the year after that, not the same year. Missing the threshold on both semesters of a year, by contrast, means repeating both semesters in full the following year.

Clause 4.3 puts an outer limit on this: a candidate who fails first year twice, for any reason, cannot continue without special permission from the university, and even then clause 4.2’s overall limit of seven years from first admission still applies.

The ordinance illustrates this directly. A semester’s SGPA is first calculated with a failed subject worth 0 points, for example a 3-credit subject graded F contributing 0 to the total, alongside four other subjects contributing 133 credit-points across 20.5 total credits, for an SGPA of 133 ÷ 20.5, which is 6.48.

Once that subject is cleared in a later attempt, with a new grade of E worth 4 points on its 3 credits, the illustration adds those 12 credit-points to the earlier 133, giving 145 credit-points across the same 20.5 credits. The recalculated SGPA is 145 ÷ 20.5, which is 7.07. The credits for that subject never change. Only its contribution to the points side of the formula moves, from 0 up to whatever grade you earn once you pass it. Our carry-over calculator works through a fuller example of this same before-and-after SGPA change.

Clause 16.1 sets Honours and Distinction at CGPA 7.5 or above, but only if every subject was passed in a single attempt, with no grace marks and no year gap. A carry-over paper, by definition, was not passed on the first attempt, so it rules out both of those categories regardless of your final CGPA. First division, 6.5 up to below 7.5, and Second division, 5.0 up to below 6.5, carry no such condition under clause 16.1(c) and (d), so a cleared carry-over paper does not block either of those once your overall CGPA and grades qualify.

• AKTU Carry-Over Calculator
• AKTU Scrutiny, Challenge Evaluation and Revaluation
• AKTU Grace Marks
• AKTU Grading System

Last checked against the source documents on 18 September 2026