The Madras High Court on Wednesday wondered how students of arts, science, engineering and postgraduate computer application courses could be expected to clear their arrears without writing examinations, when an expert body such as the All-India Council of Technical Education (AICTE) had opposed such a move by the State government.
Justices M. Sathyanarayanan and R. Hemalatha said they would not hesitate to call for details such as the number of arrears that each student had in their course of study or their academic performance since Class X. The judges were surprised over a government order (G.O.) issued on August 26, cancelling all arrear examinations citing the COVID-19 situation.
The senior judge in the Bench said neither the government nor Anna University had given a thought about the availability of qualified faculty before starting over 500 engineering colleges across the State. The result of opening such colleges was that there were now too many engineering graduates in the State, but many of them lacked employable skills.
The observations were made during the hearing of a public interest litigation petition filed by E. Balagurusamy, 75, former vice-chancellor of Anna University, through his counsel E. Vijay Anand, as well as another PIL petition filed by advocate B. Ramkumar Adityan to declare the August 26 G.O. illegal and arbitrary.
In his affidavit, Mr. Balagurusamy had said that he had chosen to file the PIL petition to save the quality of education, the future of students and the reputation of various universities in the State. He said the government’s decision had demoralised meritorious students who had cleared all papers without arrears.
“The G.O. will definitely lower the education standard of the students and the universities… Several students have approached me and expressed their apprehensions about the future prospects and further informed me that most students have more than 25 arrear papers and have less than 25% marks in most of the subjects,” he said.
The AICTE has already filed its response to the PIL petition and told the court that the government’s decision to cancel arrears was not in accordance with its guidelines. “The G.O. declaring all the students as passed without an assessment, by way of examination, is against the AICTE Act,” it said.
On Wednesday, advocate V. Sudha, representing the UGC, sought two weeks’ time to file a counter affidavit on behalf of the commission. Immediately, Mr. Anand said that it was essential for the UGC to file its counter affidavit since the State government had been claiming that arrear exams were cancelled as per UGC guidelines. When advocate Praveen Anand, representing some of the college students, also said that the exams were cancelled only as per UGC guidelines, Ms. Sudha begged to differ with him and said that the commission would make its stand clear in the counter affidavit.
Accepting her plea, the judges adjourned the cases to November 20.
