New Delhi: The Supreme Court today heard the pleas against the UGC guidelines making it mandatory for final year exams to be held by September 30 amidst the Covid-19 pandemic. After several hearings on the matter, the final decision was expected to be out today. But it has been adjourned to August 18.
Thousands of college and university students all over India are waiting for a final word from Supreme Court. They have been repeatedly asked to continue with their exam preparation since no final decision regarding the exams has been taken yet.
What happened at the last hearing?
At the last hearing on August 10, SC had questioned the Delhi and Maharashtra governments’ decisions to not conduct the exams and had sought clarification on whether the Disaster Management Act can override the UGC’s statutory authority and the guidelines.
While the SC bench headed by Justice Ashok Bhushan granted time to UGC to file the responses to the affidavits filed by the two state governments, Advocate Alakh Alok Srivastava, representing a few of the petitioners, questioned the legality of holding the final year exams in a pandemic.
Advocate Srivastava had said yesterday: “Academic interest of few students can’t outweigh right to health and life of lakhs of students. MHA/UGC have overlooked alarming Covid-19 crisis, poor health infrastructure and deadly flood.” “Their decision to conduct final exam, is illegal and unconstitutional. SC will set it aside,” he added. UGC maintained its stance that exams must be conducted for degrees to be given and that state governments couldn’t cancel exams as it went against the authority of the University Grants Commission.
UGC had questioned why it was okay to go ahead with new academic sessions in the two states which had raised objections while final year exams were asked to be cancelled. UGC said it would hamper the standards of higher education.
Here’s what happened at the SC hearing today:
Problems to be faced by students: Travelling problems, exams without classes
Lead Counsel, Dr. Abhishek Manu Singhvi opened the arguments today by talking about the Right to Life. He pointed out that a large section of students would have to travel long distances to the exam centres which would increase the health risk.
Since there was a disparity in the classes of the students, many would be forced to use public transport, and many had even returned to their hometowns. He said that it was an irony that the UGC guidelines talked about the rising number of Covid-19 cases.
Singhvi questioned how exams were being conducted after educational institutions had been closed for around five months under orders of the Ministry of Home Affairs. Advocate Shyam Divan said that the UGC guidelines were advisory in nature and many students had already secured admission elsewhere or secured jobs.
Moreover, he said that many hostels had been turned into quarantine centres as educational institutions were required to be closed till July 31 as per the Unlock 2 guidelines. As per Unlock 3, that date was shifted to August 31.
He noted that further restrictions could also be imposed above these.
Why partiality between first-year and final-year students
Advocate argued that since exams were postponed when the Covid-19 cases were in thousands, why should they be conducted when the number was in lakhs.
He said that the homogenous group of students shouldn’t get partial treatment based on the year. The hearing has been adjourned for now and the next one is scheduled for August 18.
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