The Supreme Court today agreed to hear a petition seeking postponement of the Graduate Aptitude Test in Engineering Exam, 2022, which is scheduled to be held on February 5, 6, 12 and 13, 2022, in light of extraordinary rise in Covid-19 cases all over the country.
Advocate-on-Record Pallav Mongia on behalf of students/ candidates appearing in GATE Exams 2022, mentioned the matter before the bench led by Chief Justice (CJI) N.V. Ramana, and also comprising Justice AS Bopanna and Justice Hima Kohli. The CJI agreed to list the matter for early hearing.
The plea stated that the country is currently suffering from a ‘third Wave’ of rising COVID cases with number of daily cases touching a record 3 lakh and above. In this frightening situation that has engulfed the whole country, the Petitioner(s) are being forced to write the GATE 2022 physically which poses a massive health risk on the lives of many aspirants like the petitioner(s).
It alleged that the respondents have not taken into consideration the possibility of conducting GATE 2022 in physical mode turning into a potential super spreader event as More than 9 lakh students are appearing for the exam across 200 exam centers.
“Additionally, the instructions issued by the Respondent No.1 (Centre) also lacks clarity, creates confusion among students as it creates an unnecessary classification between students who will be allowed to appear for the exam and those who would be barred with no medical or legal basis. The instructions allows asymptomatic students who are showing symptoms to appear for the exam but not those students who have tested positive but are asymptomatic. There exists no intelligible differentia in such classification by the Respondents as per instructions and thus it is violative of Article 14 of the Constitution of India,” states the plea.
Further, it sought direction to the Centre to postpone the GATE 2022 in light of rising Covid-19 cases and strike down the Instructions alleging the same is arbitrary and unreasonable and violative of Article 14 and 21 of the Constitution.