The State government has justified its decision to cancel the arrear examinations of arts, science, engineering and MCA students, except for those in the final year. When semester and annual examinations have been cancelled due to COVID-19, it is but natural to cancel arrear examinations too, it reasoned.
In a counter-affidavit filed before a Division Bench of Justices M. Sathyanarayanan and R. Hemalatha of the Madras High Court, the government said it had cancelled the arrear examinations, too, this year to avoid discrimination between “regular and arrear students” and to desist from creating “inequality among equals”.
Allaying the apprehension of Anna University former Vice-Chancellor E. Balagurusamy, who had filed a public interest litigation petition against the cancellation, the government claimed that the cancellation would neither bring down academic standards nor demoralise merit students.
The government said Chief Minister Edappadi K. Palaniswami announced the decision to cancel the arrear examinations only after consulting the universities. The decision did not violate any of the guidelines issued by the University Grants Commission as well as the All-India Council for Technical Education.
M. Ilango Henry Dass, Joint Secretary, Higher Education Department, filed the counter-affidavit before the court on behalf of the Principal Secretary.
“Students have been traumatised by this deadly virus when they witness the toll taken by the virus on their kith and kin and even more when they themselves contract the infection. COVID-19 has been overwhelming coming upon as wave after wave in its relentless attack on humanity. In the first wave, the department... sent home the resident students and hostels were closed. Students staying in accommodations outside campus were also advised to return to their hometowns,” the counter read.
When the lockdown was extended, some students got stranded without food and they had to be provided free rations, the court was told. “With poverty being the major fallout of this pandemic, the student population has not been spared its wrath. Parents of students lost employment and could not help their children who were in distress. Students staying in low-cost accommodation were sent out by house owners overnight and had no place to go and their families could not reach them with the help required,” the government said.
Further stating that most of the students had left behind their textbooks, notebooks and laptops in their hostels and that the latter remain inaccessible to them till date because many colleges were initially used by the government as shelters for migrant labourers and later as COVID-19 quarantine centres, the Higher Education department said and added that it had decided to cancel the arrear examinations too only after taking all these issues into consideration.
The government pointed out to the court that the guidelines issued by the UGC during the pandemic did not state anything with regard to the conduct of arrear examinations.
