Delhi High Court grants more time to Delhi University to come up with a detailed plan for conducting final year exams

• The Delhi High Court today (July 9) allowed more time to the University of Delhi to come up with a detailed plan for conducting final exams.
  
• That includes the mode of examination — online, offline or blended mode, final date sheet and necessary guidelines for students.
  
• The development comes after the country’s premier government institution announced that the final year exams have now been postponed to August, 2020.

The Delhi High Court today (July 9) allowed more time to the University of Delhi to come up with a detailed plan for conducting final exams for the graduating students. That includes the mode of examination — online, offline or blended mode, final date sheet and necessary guidelines for students.

The development comes after the country’s premier government institution announced that the final year exams have now been postponed to August, 2020. Earlier, the exams were scheduled to be held from July 10, 2020.

The decision was taken during the High Court hearing, headed by Justice Pratibha M Singh. The university told the court that the exams will now be held after August 15.

“Just see how you are playing the lives of children. 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 the contrary,” The High Court had said.

The development came after several final year students filed a petition in the high court, seeking withdrawal of the announcement on online exams for both undergraduate and postgraduate courses. This includes distance learning courses and exams. The decision to conduct the exam in July was highly opposed by the students.

"We were willing to hold it, but the UGC guidelines came at the last moment," Advocate Sachin Dutta submitted before a single judge bench of Justice Pratibha M Singh.

The petition also asked the court to allow an alternative evaluation model in place — that assesses students based on previous year’s result to promote first and second year students.

The decision by the Delhi University comes at a time when the University Grants Commission has mandated that the final year college students will have to sit for exams — online, offline or blended mode.

“Evaluation of the terminal semester students which was to be done through examinations in the month of July, now their examinations will be conducted by the end of September-2020, following the guidelines laid down by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare,” Union Cabinet Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal said on July 7.

In case the student is unable to sit for the examination in September, they may be allowed to appear in special exams for those courses, which may be conducted by the universities later, when the situation normalises, the UGC guideline added.

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