Delhi University (DU) received a go-ahead from Delhi High Court for conducting an Open Book exam for final year students from August 10, according to several reports. The clearance to conduct the exam was given but the Court has asked the university to fulfill certain directions.
Justice Prathiba M Singh of the Delhi High Court said that the University can conduct the exam in accordance with the UGC guidelines for the final year students. The Court asked the University to post the question paper online along with emailing it to the candidates.
The Court also directed the University to give 2 hours for students to finish the exam and an exam 1 hours to upload the answer sheet. The University must also have a facility for an auto-generated reply acknowledging the receipt of the answer sheet.
The University must also address all grievances within 48 hours and proper mechanism should be set up to make this possible. If the grievances are not addressed within the deadline, the issue should be automatically directed to Grievances Redressal Committee, directed the court.
Former Delhi High Court Judge Pratibha Rani will chair the rederssal committee, the court said. The details of all the nodal officers, central ID, participating colleges and concerned officers have to be published by August 8.
The petitioner argued that that the online examination was discriminatory for students who do not have decent technological infrastructure and for those candidates in containment zones and flooded areas of the country. DU argued that the level of infrastructure required to participate in the exam is minimal.
There is another case pending with regard to the DU OBE exam with Delhi High Court with division bench of Justices Hima Kohli and Subramonium Prasad. The plea has been filed by a physically disabled student highlighting the difficulties that students like him will face in taking the online exam. The next hearing on the matter will be on August 17.
The University had scheduled to be conduct the OBE exam in the month of July which was postponed and is now scheduled to be conducted after August 15 with no specific date issued for the same.
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