TN arrear case: Madras HC stops universities from declaring results – Details

In a new development with regards to the arrear exams case in Tamil Nadu, the Madras High Court has restrained universities in the state from declaring results without conducting the exams either in the online or offline mode.

The UGC counsel has strongly opposed the decision of the Tamil Nadu government to cancel the exams, declaring in their affidavit that the arrear exams for engineering, and arts and science students in the state must be conducted at all costs. While a number of universities have already released the results of the arrear exams, a division bench of Justice M Sathyanarayanan and Justice R Hemalatha passed an interim order staying the declaration of the results by the universities. The bench has also permitted universities in the state to conducted exams if they wanted to, while adjourning the cases to January 11. Additionally, the judges have also warned students of contempt of court proceedings for recording the court proceedings and uploading/live streaming them on YouTube.

Opposing the decision of the Tamil Nadu government to cancel the arrear exams of all engineering students in the state who paid their exam fees, the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) earlier claimed that the state government’s decision is against the guidelines laid by the University Grants Commission (UGC) and that the students will have to pass all their exams in order to get a degree. The state government released a statement on August 26 declaring that every student who had 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. 

The 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.