The Attendence rule in IIIT :(

Today i saw one of my batchmates pretty upset coz he didn't attend the AI class and now he's gonna lose a grade. I sympathise with him coz i'm one of the student's whose suffered a lot because of the attendence rule. I joined the institute about 15 days late(due to various reasons) and started off with about 6 absents in each subject.At the end of the semester i lost about 1 grade point and ended up with a sgpa of 6 whereas i had actually got about 7.1. I talked to the dean and the dean said that i came late and that i could "get out of his office." Numerous other people from my batch and also others have lost a lot of grades due to attendence.
If you look at the grades and their meanings here it's clear that grades are meant to reflect academic acheivement. Now if i get an "A" grade it means that i've performed excellently in the course. But in that very course if my attendence is 74% i get an "F" which means i "have not picked up any of the basic/required concepts taught in the course and have performed uniformly bad in all the assessments". How contradictory!. Aren't grades meaningless with such policies. I mean you could know everyting taught in the course get full marks in every test, every assignment and still be classified as "F" !
Secondly when a Faculty member gives you a grade he thinks you deserve that grade. Then to alter that grade for non-academic reasons is very disrespectful to both the faculty members opinion and also the hard work of the student.
And to anyone who says "grades don't matter it's about what you learn".....I'm sorry! that's how the system works. Wherever you go any faculty member will ask you your grades. Whenever you apply outside you are asked your grades. I wonder if any faculty member has had their grades deducted due to attendence during their B.Tech.
And i don't understand the need for such a rule. from what i gather senior batches like ug99 and ug2k really abused the no-attendence policy. There were people who didn't attend a single class the entire sem and still got A grades. I agreee that such a situation ruins the discipline of the college but implementing the current rules is way too extreme. Something like a 70 % attendence policy would be reasonable. Surely there must be other possible penalties for low attendence other then deducting grades.
And as for the rule it's a vague rule. And I know everybody says the dean is responsible and blah blah blah. But this is the institute policy. And such descicions aren't made by the dean alone. The director the dean and senior faculty members are all involved in this descision making. So in short all the faculty members without exception are responsible for this. I know some faculty members don't think this is the right way of doing things and but they too can't do anything.
I hope some of my fellow iiit'ians will read this and think of it as worthwhile to discuss this issue. This is a serious issue and deserves atleast a decent discussion. I feel if all students come together we can atleast force the faculty to have a rethink on this issue.