Supreme Court has rejected the plea seeking postponement of JEE and NEET examinations while stating that life has to go on and we cannot put career of students on stake.
A three-judge bench headed by Justice Arun Mishra, also comprising of justice BR Gavai and justice Krishna Murari told that despite the COVID-19, life has to go on and apex court cannot put the career of students in peril by interfering with National Testing Agency’s decision to conduct the exams.
“Career of students cannot be put in peril. We find no merit in the petition. The petition is dismissed,” said the bench.
“You (lawyers) have demanded opening of physical courts. But you want exams to be postponed. Postponement of exams is a loss for country,” further added the bench.
11 JEE/NEET aspirants through advocate Alakh Alok Srivastava had moved the Supreme Court seeking postponement of the exams amid coronavirus outbreak. Srivastava told the bench that the vaccine for COVID is on its way and he is not seeking an indefinite postponement of the exams. But the top court’s bench didn’t find any merit in the case and rejected the plea.
11 JEE/NEET aspirants hailing to 11 different states had filed a petition in the Supreme Court last month. They sought the postponement of exams in view of the pandemic till the situation normalises. The petitioners had sought the quashing of National Testing Agency’s July 3 orders to conduct the JEE/NEET exams in the month of September.
As per the July 3 notification issued by NTA, JEE (Main) 2020 exam) is scheduled to be conducted between September 1 to 6 and NEET-UG 2020 exam on September 13.
The petitioners stated in their petition, “Conducting JEE and NEET at this stage will put the lives of lakhs of young students in danger. The best recourse at this stage can be to wait for some more time, let Covid-19 Crisis subside and then only conduct these Exams, in order to save the lives of the students and their parents.”
Earlier, the JEE/NEET exams were scheduled to be held in April and May respectively. But following the coronavirus outbreak, exams were postponed.
Another petitioner who sought the directions to conduct the exams on the scheduled dates only, withdrew his petition after the apex court rejected the petition for exam postponement.
