We can’t stop Universities from holding exams said the Supreme Court

On 3rd September, the Supreme Court dismissed a petition to cancel the exams of First-year and Second-year students.

One of the most impacted sections of society, due to the pandemic, is the student community.
A few days back the Supreme Court gave its final verdict regarding Final Year examinations of colleges. The verdict given was in favour of conducting examinations and minimizing the negative fallout of the pandemic on the future of Final Year students.
On 3rd September, the Supreme Court dismissed a petition to cancel the exams of First-year and Second-year students. The PIL was filed by Ayush Yesudas.
As per the UGC Guidelines issued on April 27, 2020, “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 and other factors. In case the situation does not appear to be normal in view of COVID-19, in order to maintain “social distancing”, safety and 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 and the remaining 50% marks can be awarded on the basis of performance in previous semester only (if available).”

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Ayush Yesudas’ petition claimed that conducting exams would be a contradiction to the above-mentioned guidelines and dangerous due to COVID-19.
The Supreme Court dismissed the petition saying, “The University Grants Commission (UGC) has left it to the discretion of the Universities to conduct examinations for the 1st and 2nd-year students. If they want to hold the examination, we can’t stop them. This is not a ground for judicial review.”