Supreme Court today instructed University Grants Commission (UGC) to work with the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) to come up with a new 2020-21 academic calendar, reports LiveLaw.in.
The Court instructed both the agencies to work in tandem with regard to the compartment exam result and academic calendar so that students who are giving the compartment exam do not lose a year.
The Court instructed UGC to work out a date with the CBSE regarding the cut-off dates for one to apply for admissions and then it will instruct the board to declare the compartment exam results before that date.
A bench of Justices AM Khanwilkar & Sanjiv Khanna noted that due to the exceptional circumstances both the agencies should work closely regarding formulating an academic calendar that can accommodate students appearing for the compartment exam. The board is conducting the compartment exam from September 22 to September 29.
The petitioner had argued the calendar released by UGC does not give room for students appearing in the compartment exam to apply for admissions to colleges. The application cut-off dates for most colleges are before the expected date of compartment exam results.
Senior Advocate Vivek Tankha said that generally compartment exams are held before the college admissions. He argued “The most important thing is that if we don’t get admissions in colleges after the compartment exams are done, then our entire year gets wasted.”
UGC had released a revised alternate calendar for the academic year 2020-21 on Monday in which it had instructed universities to commence their first year classes from November 1 and no new admissions will be allowed after November 30.
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