UGC Guidelines on Final year Exams 2020: SC to hear students' plea on scrapping the exams in next 2 days

Supreme Court of India will be hearing the plea against the UGC guidelines to conduct the final year exams after two days. Read further to know more.

The Supreme Court of India today heard a petition by students challenging the University Grants Commission's guidelines to conduct University final year exams. Justice L Nageswara Rao who was hearing the arguments said that a bench led by Justice Ashok Bhushan will take up the pleas challenging UGC guidelines in the next two days. The plea was filed by 31 students from across India seeking the cancellation of exams amid the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak. It was listed today for hearing before the two-judge bench including Justice L Nageswara Rao and Hemant Gupta.

The students who hailed from 13 states and one union territory are demanding cancellation of the University final year exams scheduled to be conducted before September 30, 2020 as per the UGC revised guidelines. On June 6, the UGC has issued a circular regarding the conduct of exams. One of the 31 petitioners has been tested COVID-19 positive. The petitioners thus urged that the exams that are scheduled to be conducted across the country shall be cancelled in the interest of justice owing to the current rising number of coronavirus positive in the country. 

The petition sought to release the results based on an internal assessment or past performance. It has also asked the institutes to issue the mark sheets before July 31, 2020. The plea asked to court to issue directions to UGC to adopt the CBSE model and conduct exams later when the conditions are feasible for the students who are not satisfied with the marks awarded to them.

"Out of 818 universities, 603 universities have either conducted the examinations or planning to conduct them," said University Grants Commission after receiving responses from universities regarding conducting of the terminal semester/final year examinations. 

UGC in response to the petition said, "Students shouldn't panic. We are working on the case and will be analysing NSUI petition. We will be prepared to counter it as both the matters are different. We are confident of getting justice."

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