Students of Engineering and Arts & Science colleges in Tamil Nadu with backlogs have been anticipating a final decision on the matter of the conduction of arrear exams in the state for over a month. The state government released a statement on August 26 declaring that every student who has paid their fees to appear for the arrear examinations in April - May 2020 will be passed on the basis of the guidelines provided by the UGC and AICTE.

However, a case was registered against the GO in the Madras High Court by an advocate as well as Anna University's former Vice Chancellor E. Balagurusamy. The court ordered the state government, the UGC, and the AICTE to produce a statement to them by September 30. Meanwhile, Higher Education Minister KP Anbalagan has now said that students who had paid their fees to appear for their arrear exams in any semester (barring the terminal semester) shall be awarded pass marks in the respective subjects, based on the guidelines provided by the UGC and AICTE in July. He also added that students did not have to worry about the situation as the state government was firm with its decision. In a statement released on August 26, Chief minister Edappadi K Palaniswamy said, "Based on demand from students and recommendation by the expert panel, all students except final year students who paid fees for writing arrears are exempted from writing the exams. The marks for these exams will be awarded based on the guidelines given by University Grants Commission (UGC) and All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE)."

The TN government had already promoted all students studying BA, BSc, MA, MSc, BE/B Tech/B Arch, ME/M Tech, MCA and diploma courses to the next academic year after cancelling the current year's semester exams, except for those appearing for their final semester examination.