Supreme Court: The 3-judge bench of Ashok Bhushan, R. Subhash Reddy and MR Shah, JJ has sought response from University Grants Commission (UGC) on a batch of petitions seeking challenging its circular and seeking cancellation of final term examination in the wake of COVID-19 pandemic. The Court has directed that counter affidavit be filed within 3 days and has placed the matter for hearing on July 31, 2020.
According to ANI, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, appearing for the UGC, told the court that there are 818 universities out of which 209 universities have already conducted examination (online or offline) and 394 others are planning to conduct the same. He said that the UGC has given options like online, offline, and both for conducting exams and added that government guidelines are there as per which not more than 10 students per room are allowed for the exams.
During the hearing advocate Alakh Alok Srivastava, appearing for one of the petitioners, told the bench that today 50,000 COVID-19 cases have been registered and added that the UGC guidelines need to be stayed till the petitions are pending in the Supreme Court.
The court was hearing a petition filed by as many as 31 students from different universities across India seeking to quash the UGC circular dated July 6 whereby all universities all across India have been asked to wrap up the final term examinations before September 30.
[Praneeth K v. University Grants COmmission, 2020 SCC OnLine SC 602 , order dated 27.07.2020]
Read the details of UGC’s revised guidelines on conduct of final year exams here
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