SC issues notice to UGC on pleas against direction to conduct final year exam by Sept 30

The Supreme Court on Monday sought a reply from the University Grants Commission (UGC) on a batch of pleas challenging its circular and seeking cancellation of final term examination in the wake of COVID-19 pandemic.

A bench headed by Justice Ashok Bhushan, also comprising Justices RS Reddy and MR Shah, asked the UGC to file a reply by Wednesday and posted the matter for further hearing on Friday.

Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, appearing for the UGC, told the court that there are 818 universities out of which 209 universities have already conducted examination (online or offline) and 394 others are planning to conduct the same.

Referring to the guidelines issued by the authorities, he said students can appear in the examinations online, offline or mixture of both.

The bench said a consolidated reply be filed on the batch of petitions, including the one filed by Shiv Sena's youth wing 'Yuva Sena', and posted it for hearing on July 31.

He said that the UGC has given options like online, offline, and both for conducting exams and added that government guidelines are there as per which not more than 10 students per room are allowed for the exams.

During the hearing, advocate Alakh Alok Srivastava, appearing for one of the petitioners, told the bench that today 50,000 COVID-19 cases have been registered and added that the UGC guidelines need to be stayed till the petitions are pending in the apex court.

The court was hearing a petition filed by as many as 31 students from different universities across India seeking to quash the UGC circular dated July 6 whereby all universities all across India have been asked to wrap up the final term examinations before September 30.

The students, in their petition, urged that the exams should be cancelled and the results of such students should be calculated on the basis of their internal assessment or past performance.

The petition filed by the students from 13 States and one Union Territory requested that the students` mark sheets should be issued before July 31. One of the students, among the 31 petitioners, has tested positive for COVID-19 and prayed for directions to the UGC to adopt the CBSE model and conduct an examination at a later date for the students who are not satisfied with the marks awarded on the basis of the assessment.

That the planned examinations be cancelled in the interest of justice for the students as the number of COVID-19 cases is on the rise, the plea said. Another petition on the issue, filed in the apex court by final year law student Yash Dubey, also sought cancellation of UGC mandated final year exams. Shiv Sena leader Aditya Thackeray has also moved the apex court on behalf of Yuva Sena, the youth wing of Shiv Sena, against the mandated final year exams in the wake of rising COVID-19 cases. 

One of the petitions, filed by 31 final year students, has sought quashing of the July 6 directive by which all the universities or colleges across India have been asked to conduct final year examinations by September 30.

"It is respectfully submitted that the same UGC had earlier postponed the university examinations scheduled in July, 2020, due to COVID-19 outbreak. However, shockingly, now when the COVID-19 crisis has worsened to a dangerous level, the respondent UGC has decided to conduct all examinations across India, in an utterly arbitrary manner," the plea, filed through advocate Alakh Alok Srivastava said.

It claimed that earlier mark sheets and degrees were awarded to the students by July 31.

(With ANI inputs)