A court in northern India says it is against the country’s constitution for female students to be barred from a main university library.
Several thousand female undergraduates at Aligarh Muslim University in Uttar Pradesh are being barred from entering the Maulana Azad Library.
The University’s Vice-Chancellor has reportedly argued that female students would attract a lot of young men.
He has also argued that young women can order books online instead.
The Allahabad High Court addressed the issue after a petition was filed by a law intern, supported by the Human Rights Law Network (HRLN).
A lawyer with HRLN, Smriti Kartikeya, told the BBC that access to the library was a basic right for all students, regardless of gender, religion or caste.
The court said that if there were not enough seats available for female students, the university needed to make provision to accommodate them.