Justices M Sathyanarayanan and P Rajamanickam also stated that any further proceedings in this regard would be subject to the outcome of this petition. The court was hearing the public interest litigation filed by R Murali, former principal of Madura College, in Madurai.ugc case

Madras HC seeks UGC, government responses in petition against online exam
TNN | Updated: Sep 23, 2020, 10:28 IST
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MADURAI: Madras high court on Monday sought response from University Grants Commission, state government and Madurai Kamaraj University (MKU) in a plea challenging the mode of final semester examination at MKU. A division bench of Justices M Sathyanarayanan and P Rajamanickam also stated that any further proceedings in this regard would be subject to the outcome of this petition. The court was hearing the public interest litigation filed by R Murali, former principal of Madura College, in Madurai.
The petitioner stated that owing to Covid-19, the state government had passed a GO to conduct final semester exams in various colleges and universities through online or offline or blended mode for 2019-2020. The government had granted permission to MKU to conduct the exams online from September 17 to 30. Subsequently, the registrar issued proceedings directing the university and affiliated colleges to conduct online mode exams. He stated that the students were asked to write the exam on A4 sheet, take photos of the answer sheets and send them to the university through WhatsApp. He stated that this was not an online mode of exam.
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Provisions of MKU Act empower the academic council to take a decision on various aspects including conduct of exams. He further stated that only the academic council and not the registrar has powers to decide the mode of exam. The confidentiality and credibility of the exam will be at stake if such a method of exam is permitted for final year students. He further stated that this practice would set a bad precedent as there was no fool proof method to prevent malpractices. Hence, the petitioner sought to quash the proceedings for conducting online exam and award marks by calculating marks of previous exams or conduct exam after obtaining permission from the academic council.