You’re playing with students’ lives: HC to DU

You’re playing with students’ lives: HC to DU

Move To Postpone Final Exams To Mid-August Draws Court’s Ire

Abhinav.Garg@timesgroup.com

New Delhi:  09.07.2020

A day after claiming it is well prepared to conduct the final-year examinations online later this week, Delhi University on Wednesday told the high court it had postponed the same till mid-August.

DU submitted before Delhi high court that the decision to postpone the open-book examinations (OBE), scheduled from July 10, came after a meeting on Tuesday among university officials, University Grants Commission (UGC) and the human resource development ministry.

Justice Pratibha M Singh, however, took a dim view of DU’s stand and remarked “just see how you are playing with the lives of children”. Till Tuesday, the judge said, DU had assured the court that it was all geared up to hold the online exams.

The university, through senior advocate Sachin Dutta, then told the court that during mock tests, more than 4.9 lakh question papers had been downloaded and attempted, and 4.7 lakh files uploaded successfully, showing that the students were able to access the mock tests as well as upload the documents.

“You were not fair with the court about your preparedness for holding the online examinations. You are saying you are ready but the minutes of your meeting shows to the contrary,” Justice Singh noted, while hearing petitions by several final-year DU students seeking quashing and withdrawal of the notifications of May 14 and 30 and June 27 on the online exams for final-year undergraduate and postgraduate students, including those of School of Open Learning and Non-Collegiate Women Education Board. DU’s decision has created uncertainty among students, the court observed. DU has now postponed OBE for the second time.

Meanwhile, UGC said it had allowed the universities to conduct examinations as per their convenience provided the September deadline was adhered to. The students have also sought direction to DU to evaluate the final-year students based on the previous years’ or semesters’ results, the way the university plans to promote others.

Justice Singh has transferred the case to a division bench, which is hearing petitions related to the validity of OBE.

After the high court earlier sought to know how prepared DU is to conduct the examinations on July 10, the university had told the court that out of its around 2.5 lakh final-year students, approximately 1.9 lakh were from Delhi and the rest from outside. It also claimed its examination portal was “quite robust” and was capable of catering to 80,000 students at a time, while the traffic won’t be more than 22,000 for each exam.

Prof Vinay Gupta, dean of examinations, had also submitted the evaluation of papers was likely to begin in the first week of August and the results would be released by the first week of October.

NO CLARITY OVER FUTURE