The Delhi High Court on Monday refused to postpone the Chartered Accountants (CA) Inter and Final exams 2024 which are scheduled to be held in May. Twenty-six candidates sought a plea seeking postponement of exams from May to June because of the Lok Sabha elections.
The petitioners, through their plea, highlighted that the exam schedule is clashing with the dates of the upcoming Lok Sabha elections and therefore requested the court issue directions to the respondent authorities to reschedule the exams, which should be held after the elections.
The bench of Justice C Harishankar on Monday dismissed the plea asking the petitioner aspirants whether there is some law that says there can't be any exams during Lok Sabha elections. “It is clear on the face of it that the petition is bereft of substance”, said the court. The court further added that no CA exam is clashing with the voting dates, and asked students to balance their preparation in the right way, if they wish to cast their vote.
Several CA students affirm the High Court’s stance against the postponement of exam dates. Ravi Sarawagi, a CA student, believes that getting done with the exams on the expected dates will relieve students and that they might get depressed or suffer financial loss if the exam gets delayed by another month. He further adds that postponement might mean the exams of Foundation level students in June could get deferred, adding to their inconvenience.
“ICAI has a history of handling exams well. If they’re taking responsibility for conducting the exams in the season of election, they must definitely be prioritising student’s wellbeing,” Sarawagi said.
It’s best to have exams right now, he says, since the political climate during elections could get “tense”. “If there is any political tussle, exams could get postponed again, or else they would have to be conducted after election counting is done,” Sarawagi added.
“Students who are protesting are just creating a nuisance”, says Sunil Suthar, a CA student, adding that CA students tend to have a set schedule for their preparation and if exams get postponed, it might break the rhythm of their preparation and disrupt their schedule, needing them to reschedule their preparation. Postponing, therefore, would be risky, he thinks.
CA student Vaibhav Sanwal believes that if the exams get postponed, people who don’t make it in this attempt will get less time to study during their next attempt. “Even during the Covid pandemic, students were short of time to prepare, but they had to adjust. Besides, I don’t think postponing exams by a month makes sense because it shouldn’t take students that long to cast their vote,” Sanwal said.
Another CA student, who prefers to be anonymous, said, “In my opinion, only about 10% of students would be actually interested in voting. All they want is to delay the exam to get more preparation time”.
The plea further stated that transportation and other issues may arise due to the scheduled dates of the Lok Sabha Elections.
Due to the upcoming Lok Sabha elections, the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) recently revised the CA Inter and Final exam for May 2024. However, despite the new date, several CA aspirants had demanded a revision of the exam dates.
(With inputs from ANI)
