The Telangana High Court on Monday asked the government to provide clarity on whether they intend to conduct the undergraduate and postgraduate final examinations online or offline. The bench comprising Chief Justice Raghavendra Singh Chauhan and justice B Vijayasen Reddy was hearing a petition filed by NSUI leader B Venkat Narsing, who sought the intervention of the court, asking them to promote all the students to the next year or semester without conducting exams in view of the coronavirus pandemic. The exams were supposed to be held in July but were postponed due to the health crisis.
During the hearing, Justice Vijaysen Reddy pointed out that the two government letters submitted to the court were contradicting each other. The first letter, dated September 11, states that a decision has been taken to conduct a physical examination. However, the letter dated September 12 states that autonomous universities and colleges are free to conduct online examinations.
“First of all, give clear instructions that whether to conduct online or offline examinations to the undergraduate or postgraduate students, you cannot put students in confusion,” he said, according to The Hans India.
Responding to the query, Advocate General Banda Shivananda Prasad told the Court that the autonomous universities and colleges are free to conduct either online or offline (physical) examinations, while affiliated engineering colleges and degree colleges cannot have online examinations.
Arguing for the petitioner, C Damodar Reddy told the court that parents and students are in a state of panic and the online mode of exams will bring some relief, according to Times of India. He also said there were no clear answers on whether the question papers would be the same for both affiliated and autonomous colleges.
However, Chief Justice Raghavendra Singh said, “Those who are not interested in taking exams can stay back. The state government has assured advanced supplementary exams will be held later and those who appear in such examinations too will be treated as regular students.”
The court said that the state government cannot take contradictory stands. “We have permitted exams from Class X and PG medical courses. We can’t adopt a different yardstick for PG, UG courses,” the court said. The hearing was postponed for Tuesday.