MUMBAI: The Bombay high court on Saturday did not interfere with the final-year exams schedule but gave students seeking its postponement to prepare better, the liberty to approach Mumbai University’s vice-chancellor with a representation.
Exams for BA, BCom, BSc and other courses start on October 1. The vice-chancellor is to decide their representation before that, said a bench of Chief Justice Dipankar Datta and Justice Girish Kulkarni.
The bench said, “You know our powers are limited,” in reference to education matters. In a word of advice to the petitioners, two law students, it said “start studying, you will have to appear in this year’s exams.”
The bench, after hearing university counsel Rui Rodrigues who questioned their “incorrect reliance” on a clause from a June 2019 circular meant for first- and second-year students, told Sharon Patole, counsel for the students, to withdraw the petition and make a representation before the V-C.
“How can you insist on the final-year exam on the same clause in the June 2019 circular?… If you insist on an order on merits, it will go against you,” said the bench to the students.
The bench gave her time to confer with petitioners Sachin Manwadkar (43) and Dilip Randive (53), students of the three-year LLB course, and for instructions. She then said the petition was being withdrawn.
The students said they were not getting “mandatory time” as per rules between the announcement and commencement of exams. They wanted at least a month to prepare as mentioned in the 2019 circular. But Rodrigues said that circular was for physical exams for first- and second-year students and will not apply to final-year exams to be conducted during the pandemic in an online multiple choice question (MCQ) mode.
Patole said not just students, even professors have no time to prepare a question bank in the changed format.
Backlog (allowed to keep term or ATKT) exams began on September 25.
Source: https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/mumbai/students-at-liberty-to-meet-mumbai-university-v-c-to-defer-exams-bombay-high-court/articleshow/78344629.cms