Tamil Nadu government agrees to hold online exams for arrear subjects

The Tamil Nadu government on Thursday informed the Madras High Court that it would hold online examinations for students with arrear papers, making a u-turn from the earlier cancellation of such exams.

In a volte face from its earlier order passed in August last year, cancelling the arrear exams in view of the pandemic prevailing then, state Advocate General Vijay Narayan told the first bench of Chief Justice Sanjib Banerjee and Justice Senthilkumar Ramamoorthy that no student would be declared pass without writing the online exams.

"We have decided to abide by the guidelines of the University Grants Commission (UGC) and it would be mandatory for all the students, who have arrears, to attend the online exams," the AG said.

Recording this submission, the bench directed the government to hold the exam, declare the results and issue the certificates within eight weeks.

The matter stands adjourned till the second week of July, by which time all the Universities shall file reports after conducting the exams online.

The bench was passing further interim orders on two PIL petitions-- one from advocate Ramkumar Adityan and the other from Anna University former Vice Chancellor E Balagurusamy.

The PILs sought to quash the GO.

On April 7, the judges had observed that the August 2020 government order was nothing but an uninformed political decision, which had led to chaos.

It had directed the state government and the UGC to put their heads together to suggest any ameliorative measure that could be taken for holding the online exam or some other method.