Aaditya Thackeray. (Express photo)
Shiv Sena’s youth wing Yuva Sena, which is led by Maharashtra Tourism Minister Aaditya Thackeray, on Saturday moved the Supreme Court against the UGC directive to all universities to conduct final-year exams in colleges.
“Today Yuva Sena has filed a writ petition in the Supreme Court with a humble prayer to save lives of lakhs of students, teachers, non-teaching staff and their families by asking the UGC to not be stubborn about enforcing examinations when India has crossed the 10 lakh cases mark,” Aaditya Thackeray tweeted.
The petitioner is Varun Sardesai, secretary of the Yuva Sena and cousin and close confidante of Aaditya Thackeray.
Citing the risks posed by pandemic and the enormous logistical challenges of organising exams this time, the Shiv Sena and Yuva Sena have been determined in their opposition to the holding of final year or final semester exams in colleges.
The Shiv Sena-led Maha Vikas Aghadi government had earlier said it would not hold college exams in Maharashtra.
“Even in this highly worrying time, the Ministry of Human Resource Development and University Grants Commission have announced that final year examinations be conducted in India by universities in the month of September 2020, keeping in mind the adoption of its guidelines, but ignoring the physical and mental health, anxiety and safety of students across the country,” the Yuva Sena said in a statement.
In the last week of June, CM Uddhav Thackeray wrote to PM Narendra Modi requesting instructions to apex authorities to endorse the decision of the state government cancelling final year or final semester examinations in colleges and to issue necessary guidelines to universities.
The UGC, however, has said all universities must hold final year or final semester exams by the end of September, either offline or online.