Prachi Vyas
NEW DELHI, August 28: The Supreme Court on Friday upheld the University Grants Commission’s July 6 guidelines mandating final year examinations despite the coronavirus pandemic ruling out granting of degrees without exams. It, however, allowed the concerned states to seek further extension of the deadlines set as September 30 by the UGC if the pandemic situation in respective states so warranted. “But degrees cannot be awarded without holding the final year examinations,” a three-judge bench headed by justice Ashok Bhushan ruled.
The bench which also included justices R Shubhash Reddy and M R Shah allowed the decision of the Maharashtra government to cancel the examinations under the Disaster Management Act due to the prevailing pandemic in that state to prevail. It said while the state governments could cancel the examination depending on the situation, it could not decide to promote the students without the examinations. “The state governments can, however, reach out to UGC to extend the deadline of September 30, if the situation is not favorable to conduct the examination,” the apex court said.
Refusing to quash the July 6 UGC guidelines, the court also said that if any State Disaster Management Authority has decided to postpone exams in view of the situation that would prevail. the UGC had earlier said the July 6 guidelines were based on recommendations of experts and had been made after due deliberation and it would be wrong to claim that it would not be possible to conduct the final examinations in terms of the guidelines.
The Commission had told the top court that its directive, asking universities and colleges to conduct final year exams by September 30 amid the COVID-19 pandemic, was “not a diktat” but states could not take the decision to confer degrees without holding the examinations.
Upholding the UGC decision the top court said if any state felt it could not conduct the examinations by the deadline set by the UGC, “they must approach the UGC for new dates to hold the exam.” The apex court was earlier told by one of the petitioners that nobody was against the university examinations in “normal times” and the students were challenging the UGC’s decision because of the pandemic. The UGC had said that final examination is a “crucial step” in the academic career of a student and the state government cannot say that its July 6 directive was “not binding”.
