NEW DELHI: State Cabinet Ministers from Maharashtra, Punjab, Rajasthan, not governed by the BJP, west bengal, Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand moved the Supreme Court on Friday seeking the postponement of JEE (Main) and NEET-UG to protect more than 25 lakh of students from serious health risk, given the increasing number of infections and deaths from Covid-19.
The measure followed the recent meeting of the president of Congress, Sonia Gandhi, with the CMs of these states. The joint petition was submitted by West Bengal Labor and Law Minister Maloy Ghatak, Jharkhand Finance Minister Rameshwar Oraon, Rajasthan Health Minister Raghu Sharma, Chhattisgarh Minister of Food and Civil Supplies. Amarjeet Bhagat, Punjab Health Minister Balbir Singh Sidhu and Maharashtra Minister of Higher Education Uday R Samant.
The ministers requested the review of the August 17 order from a bank headed by Judge Arun Mishra, which had dismissed the PILs seeking the postponement / cancellation of JEE (Main) and NEET-UG due to the pandemic. With Attorney General Tushar Mehta assuring the court that the National Testing Agency (NTA) has taken every precaution to protect students from infection, the SC had said the exams could not be canceled because “life must go on.”
In the petition for review, filed through an advocate Sunil Fernandes, it was argued that the health risk for the 25 lakh students, who would attend both exams, was more than real due to the increasing number of daily Covid-19 cases, and that the CS could not have dismissed the requests without listen to the states. through an order that was “cryptic, non-speaking, did not discuss, much less enumerate, the various aspects and complexities involved in a matter of this magnitude and complexity.”
JEE (Main) will take place September 1-6 at 660 centers and more than 9 lakh of students are likely to show up. NEET-UG is scheduled for September 13 and more than 15 lakh students are expected to appear at 3,843 centers. The petitioners said that this would require a large movement of people and would expose the students to a great risk of infection.
The ministers said that when India was on its way to becoming the worst affected nation in the world, “the advice of ‘life must go on’ may have very strong philosophical foundations, but it cannot be a substitute for valid legal reasoning and analysis. logical of the various aspects involved in the conduct of JEE (Main) and NEET-UG. ”“ A large movement of people will prove to be a serious health hazard and will completely defeat the current twin solutions we have to combat the Covid pandemic -19, that is, social distancing and avoiding large gatherings, ”they said.
Non-BJP governed states of Odisha, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Tamil Nadu did not support the petition, citing the difficulties faced by both Odisha and Bihar. The petitioners said that in Odisha, which had demanded postponement of exams, there were more than 50,000 applicants for NEET-UG and JEE (Main) but the state had exam centers in only seven locations. BiharWith 38 districts, it has almost one lakh of applicants, but NTA has notified only seven centers for JEE (Main) and two for NEET-UG.
The petitioners said: “The order of August 17 does not recognize that the safety of the students and other interested parties is not only limited to their physical safety, but also refers to the psychological well-being of the students, especially when they are likely to appear in his most important life and defining examination “.
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