Aaditya Thackeray-Led Yuva Sena Moves Supreme Court Against UGC’s Decision to Conduct Final Year Exams

The move by the Shiv Sena youth wing comes amid nationwide demand to scrap final year university exams due to the rising number of coronavirus cases in the country, currently at over ten lakh.

New Delhi: Amid nationwide demand to scrap final year university exams due to the rising number of coronavirus cases, the Yuva Sena, which is the youth wing of the Shiv Sena, on Saturday filed a writ petition in the Supreme Court, challenging the decision of the University Grants Commission (UGC) to conduct final year exams.

Maharashtra Minister Aaditya Thackeray files a petition before Supreme Court challenging the decision of University Grants Commission (UGC) to conduct final year examinations. Court has not yet admitted the petition for hearing. (file pic) pic.twitter.com/DBv2gI20j2

— ANI (@ANI) July 18, 2020

This move by the Sena youth wing came after direction from its president, Maharashtra minister Aaditya Thackeray. The top court, however, is yet to accept the petition.

In a statement, the Yuva Sena said, “Even in this highly worrying time, the UGC has announced that final year examinations will be conducted in India by universities in the month of September, as per guidelines issued by it, but ignoring the physical and mental health, anxiety and safety of students across the country”..

Notably, on July 6, the UGC had announced guidelines for colleges to conduct online/offline exams by September-end. This was after all educational institutions across the country were closed and ongoing exams postponed in view of the coronavirus pandemic and, subsequently, the nationwide lockdown to contain its spread.

In a statement today, the UGC said that it had asked universities to inform it of about the status of conduct of their exams, adding that 755 universities had sent their response to it. Of these, it said, 194 universities informed that they had conducted their exams, while 366 said that they would do so in August/September.

India recorded a latest coronavirus spike of 34,884 new cases and 671 deaths, after crossing the ten lakh case-mark in its previous spike, which is also its highest-34,956. The total number of cases thus far stand at 10,38,716, including 6,53,751 recoveries, 3,58,692 active cases and 26,273 deaths.