Universities can hold exams for 1st & 2nd year UG courses: SC

Dhananjay.Mahapatra@timesgroup.com

New Delhi:04.09.2020

Lakhs of students in first and second year undergraduate courses may have to appear for examinations this year to get promoted to the next year as the Supreme Court on Thursday said the University Grants Commission (UGC) has left it to the discretion of universities whether or not to conduct such exams.

Ayush Yesudas, a Delhibased 24-year undergraduate student of Indira Gandhi National Open University (Ignou), through counsel Manish Pratap Singh, argued before a bench of Justices Ashok Bhushan, R S Reddy and M R Shah that the July 22 notification of Ignou asking first and second year students to appear in examinations in December would not only keep them in confusion since many universities had decided to promote them to the next year without examination but also put them in grave danger because of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The bench said the UGC had left it to the discretion of universities to hold or not to hold examinations for first and second year undergraduate students. “It is for each university to decide. UGC has given discretion. If a university decides to hold an examination, it is not subject to judicial review. We cannot start deciding whether examination is necessary or not. It (Ignou’s decision) does not violate the UGC’s July 6 guidelines,” the bench said.

Each year, around 2.5 lakh students enrol for various undergraduate courses offered by Ignou. This means, around five lakh students will have to prepare for first and second year undergraduate examinations in December. The petition, filed through Pratik Bombarde, said most students who enrolled in undergraduate courses of Ignou came from poor backgrounds and would find it difficult to appear in online examinations.

The bench had recently upheld UGC’s July 6 guidelines making it mandatory for final year undergraduate and postgraduate students to appear in examinations to be entitled to their degrees. However, it softened the September 30 deadline set by UGC for completion of final examinations by ruling that states, under the Disaster Management Act, could defer final examinations given the Covid-19 situation.