Plea moves to SC against UGC guidelines of conducting final year exams in colleges by September end

A Madhya Pradesh based final year law student Yash Dubey filed a petition in the Apex Court against the UGC guidelines for conducting the final term exams have to be compulsorily conducted by September end of this year.

New Delhi: A final year law student from Madhya Pradesh has filed a letter- petition in the Supreme Court against the Home Ministry's notification which says that final term exams have to be compulsorily conducted as per the UGC guidelines. As per the UGC guidelines exams have to be conducted by the end of September 2020.

The petitioner, Yash Dubey, writes that "the revised guidelines are in sheer violation of the fundamental rights enshrined in the Constitution of India, as it fails to consider the principles of health, safety, fair and equal opportunity for the students."

"Conducting exams will expose the students to a great risk of contracting COVID-19 as the cases have been rising and it is an unprecedented health emergency," read the letter.

The petitioner also pointed out various hurdles like travelling to attend exams, hotels being converted into COVID centres, parents' loss of job/pay cut making it difficult for the students to pay the exam fee, the difficulty of professor in invigilating etc.

Adding on further, Dubey wrote that, "even while 'Unlock-Phase-II' has commenced in the country vide MHA order dated 29.06.2020, various states like Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Assam and Maharashtra have declared complete, owing to the constant rise in COVID-19 cases."

Dubey asked the top court to take the suo moto cognizance of the matter and keep the guidelines issued by UGC in abeyance till the COVID-19 situations normalise. He also asked the court to develop a different evaluation mechanism which would exclude the risk of life.