Shiv Sena’s youth wing Yuva Sena and Maharashtra Tourism Minister Aaditya Thackeray on Saturday filed a writ petition in the Supreme Court challenging the University Grant Commission’s (UGC) revised guidelines on conducting final year exams in September despite the present COVID-19 crisis.
Aaditya, who heads the Yuva Sena, has prayed that each university be allowed to chart out its own plan of action with respect to the terminal semester/final year examinations depending on the local conditions in their respective states to provide relief to students.
Aaditya and Yuva Sena said that they will firmly support the justice and rights of the students of India.
Yuva Sena and Aaditya’s move come days after the Disaster Management Committee headed by Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray reiterated its earlier decision to cancel the final year examinations in Maharashtra during the present coronavirus pandemic.
Minister of Higher and Technical Education Uday Samant categorically said the government does not want to hold exams endangering the lives of more than 9 lakh students and appealed the Union Ministry of Human Resource Development and UGC not to make it an ego issue.
Aaditya and Yuva Sena in the petition said COVID-19 is a National Disaster in view of which UGC itself should have cancelled the final year examinations and should have arrived at a fair and uniform criteria for declaration of results by circulating it for adoption amongst the Universities in India.
Meanwhile Youth Congress in Maharashtra also supported the decision:
"However, it seems the UGC has not understood the full extent of the dilemma that the country is currently facing and it's using its power and authority to make mandatory for universities to conduct examinations can be avoided. With India’s COVID-19 cases crossing the 10 lakh mark today, India’s condition is rapidly deteriorating from its current position of third worst affected country on the Global COVID-19 scale,’’ the petitioners added.
Further, Aaditya and Yuva Sena said every academic year usually starts in June-July, apart from the health and safety of the students, exams conducted in the month of September will pose further challenges including but not limited to paper checking, when to declare examination results and admissions to post graduate courses and delays therein.
Besides, if examinations are conducted by the universities and colleges there are issues relating to network connectivity in rural areas versus those in urban areas, risk of increased transmission of COVID-19 amongst students, the petition added. It will also involve the physical presence of a large number of students in enclosed spaces.
They submitted that the country's major educational institutions like the governments of Delhi, Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan, Odisha, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, Puducherry and others have already cancelled final year examinations and all matters related thereto, is worth considering.
"The UGC has not granted respite to students yet. Under normal circumstances, UGC, by the authority it has over the country’s universities, issues instructions to them from time to time. However, in these unprecedented times of COVID-19 pandemic when the provisions of the Epidemic Diseases Act, 1897 and the Disaster Management Act, 2005 have been evoked, the petition added.
"The UGC’s stance of insisting on conducting final year examinations/session examinations and not to grant relief to students is very sad. If the UGC goes ahead with it, it may also prove to be difficult to implement and may not be safe as well,’’ they said.
