HC go-ahead for offline exams in colleges, varsities

 HC go-ahead for offline exams in colleges, varsities

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TIMES NEWS NETWORK

26.01.2022

Bhopal: A division bench of MP high court on Tuesday allowed offline exams in colleges and universities of the state with the presence of 50% of the students in a day. With this, the court disposed of a petition filed by a law student from Rani Durgavati University, Jabalpur, seeking a direction to hold online exams for college and university students in the wake of the third wave of Covid.

Deputy advocate general Swapnil Ganguly, who appeared on behalf of the state government in the case, told the court that students infected by Coronavirus would also be given a chance to appear in the exams two weeks after the exam date under complete Corona protocol.

President of Law Students' Association in Rani Durgavati University, Vishal Baghel, in his petition contended that the university had decided to organise exams in offline mode towards the end of the last year because the Corona cases had dropped drastically then. But, the situation has completely changed now. We are amidst the third wave of Coronavirus. Cases of Coronavirus are spiralling. In such a situation, holding exams offline won't be advisable. Under pressure from the stu-dents' unions, the university administration postponed the exams which were slated to begin from January 20 but it has only been postponed by a week. The exams will be taken through offline mode by January 27, which is risky for the health and lives of the students. He prayed the court to direct the university administration to hold exams online.

The division bench of chief justice R V Malimath and Justice Purusendra Kaurav had asked the deputy advocate general to take instructions in the matter from the state government.

Ganguly on behalf of the state government told the court that the exams would be held in offline mode and with the presence of 50% of the capacity students. Students, who have Corona infection, would also be given a chance to take the exams later on. Following arguments from both sides, the court allowed the state government to organise college/university exams offline and disposed of the petition.