HC aghast at move on arrear exams

The Madras High Court on Wednesday termed as “completely unacceptable” a call taken by the State authorities in August final yr to cancel the arrear examinations of all arts and science, engineering and MCA college students, besides these pursuing ultimate yr or ultimate semester of their course, by citing the unfold of COVID-19 and letting them clear the arrear papers solely on the idea of inside evaluation and their previous efficiency.

Chief Justice Sanjib Banerjee and Justice Senthilkumar Ramamoorthy additionally held that although the State authorities had claimed that the choice was taken as per University Grants Commission (UGC) norms, the Commission had come on document earlier than the court docket to state that its pointers don’t authorise the choice taken by the federal government to allow the scholars to clear arrear examinations by simply paying the requisite examination charges.

“It is inconceivable that a whole mass of students will be certified to have qualified in a system without having basic knowledge in respect of key aspects thereof. What appears to have been done by the State was to treat all those who wanted to re-write their exams as deemed to have passed without conducting any form of test or evaluation. The UGC guidelines did not provide for such a scenario nor it is acceptable to the court,” the judges wrote of their interim order.

When Advocate-General Vijay Narayan contended that the analysis system adopted to award marks for the arrears was truly in accordance with UGC pointers, the judges ordered that particulars concerning the methodology adopted by every college within the State, the variety of college students who had utilized for clearing arrear examinations and the variety of college students who had been declared move have to be submitted in court docket by April 15.

“The fullest particulars should be disclosed by the State on a university-to-university basis and, if possible, on a college-to-college basis, indicating the number of students who had applied for each course to re-write their examination and the number of students who were found to have qualified upon any process of evaluation being undertaken,” the judges noticed. The judges adjourned a few circumstances, filed in opposition to the federal government’s resolution, by every week.

Seeks recommendations

In the meantime, the court docket directed the State authorities and the UGC to place their heads collectively and provide you with recommendations on any ameliorative measures that may be taken by the use of an examination or another methodology.

“There is no doubt that lakhs of students, who had thought that they had cleared the particular course after writing their final semester, may have to be held back because they did not clear previous papers; but, at the same time, unqualified persons cannot be certified to have qualified to pursue professional courses or even higher studies. The UGC and the State should indicate what would serve the interests of the relevant students the best, without compromising the sanctity of the system, notwithstanding the pandemic,” the Bench mentioned.

Earlier, the A-G, assisted by Special Government Pleader E. Manoharan, knowledgeable the court docket that although the federal government order issued in August 2020 utilized to engineering programs too, it was not carried out for these programs as a result of Anna University refused to implement it. The All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), too, was not in favour of cancelling the conduct of arrear examinations. Therefore, the G.O. was carried out solely with respect to arts and science faculties within the State and never with respect to medical, engineering, polytechnic, regulation, agriculture and trainer training. After an interim order handed by the court docket final yr, within the current batch of circumstances, to not declare outcomes with out conducting examinations on both on-line or offline mode, many arts and science universities carried out supplementary examinations for bettering the marks within the arrear papers and a number of other lakh college students took these examinations, he knowledgeable the court docket.