The Supreme Court will hear on July 27 the writ petition filed by Shiv Sena youth wing Yuva Sena headed by the Maharashtra Tourism Minister Aaditya Thackeray challenging the University Grant Commission’s (UGC) revised guidelines on holding final year exams by September.
The Disaster Management Committee chaired by Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray last week reiterated its decision to cancel the final year examinations because of the pandemic. Minister of Higher and Technical Education Uday Samant has urged the Union Ministry of Human Resource Development and UGC not to make the final year examinations an ego issue.
Yuva Sena Secretary Varun Sardesai said a petition filed by a batch of students challenging the GUC guidelines was listed today before the SC. ‘’Yuva Sena’s advocate informed the SC that this petition is also on the same matter and requested the SC to list it together,’’ he added. The SC obliged and decided to list matters together on July 27, 2020, said Sardesai in a tweet. The Yuva Sena has received support from the youth wings of the Nationalist Congress Party and Congress who are Shiv Sena's ruling allies in the Maha Vikas Aghadi government.
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.
The Yuva Sena has argued that the academic year starts in June-July, apart from the health and safety of the students, exams conducted in the month of September will pose further challenges – delays in paper checking, result declaration, and admissions to postgraduate courses. It has also pointed out issues relating to network connectivity in rural areas, risk of increased transmission of Covid-19 among students.
Aaditya in a tweet had said, '' A humble prayer has been made to save lives of lakhs of students, teachers, non teaching staff and their families by asking UGC to not to be stubborn about enforcing examinations. We believe that academic excellence can't be judged by one examination and for academic excellence we must calculate the aggregate marks of the past semesters.''
