On Thursday, the Apex Court said that Universities were free to conduct examinations for the semester or terminal examinations for promoting the 1st & 2nd -year students in undergraduate or postgraduate courses.
A bench of Justices Ashok Bhushan, R Subhash Reddy, & MR Shah said, “The University Grants Commission (UGC) has left it to the discretion of the Universities to conduct examinations for the 1st & 2nd-year students. If they want to hold the examination, we can’t stop them. This is not a ground for judicial review.”
The Court was hearing a Public Interest Litigation filed by a student Ayush Yesudas who alleged that as per the UGC Guidelines of April 27, 2020 students in the 1st & 2nd year of undergraduate/postgraduate courses have to be assessed purely on basis of internal assessment & not an examination. This decision was taken in view of the rising number of Coronavirus cases across India.
The bench said that this issue was dealt with by its Aug 14 judgment where it upheld the UGC’s July 6 Guideline mandating examinations for the final year students in UG/PG courses. At the same time, Universities were given the freedom to hold examinations for promoting students n the previous years.
The April 27 UGC Guidelines said, “For intermediate semester/year students, the Universities may conduct examinations, after making a comprehensive assessment of their level of preparedness, residential status of the students, status of COVID-19 pandemic spread in different region / state & other factors. In case the situation does not appear to be normal in view of COVID-19, in order to maintain “social distancing”, safety & health of the students, grading of the students could be composite of 50% marks on the basis of the pattern of internal evaluation adopted by the universities & the remaining 50% marks can be awarded on the basis of performance in previous semester only (if available).”
The petitioner cited this to state, “The COVID-19 situation is still not normal. Holding examinations in these circumstances will amount to a violation of UGC Guidelines.”
The bench dismissed the petition saying, “This Court cannot be expected to start monitoring the examination of each college. Holding the examination does not violate the UGC Guideline.”
The decision of the UGC to prescribe mandatory conduct of final year examinations as per its July 6 decision was challenged in the Supreme Court by University students & teachers’ associations, besides political outfits such as Yuva Sena. As per the UGC directive, final year examinations were to be conducted before September 30 through online, offline, or by combining both methods.
In view of the Coronavirus situation, Delhi & Maharashtra Govts issued orders canceling the examinations for final year students & directed their assessment to be done through internal assessment. The Court upheld the UGC’s order directing the holding of examinations for final year students. The decision of Delhi & Maharashtra to cancel the examinations was upheld. However, the Court held that they cannot issue direction for promoting students, which falls within the jurisdiction of UGC. The Court allowed states to write to UGC seeking further extension of time for holding examinations in view of the COVID-19 situation prevailing in their respective areas.
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