The Madras High Court on Tuesday wanted to know the stand of the University Grants Commission (UGC) and the All-India Council of Technical Education (AICTE) on a decision taken by the State government to cancel arrear examinations of all arts, science, engineering and postgraduate computer application students, except for those in the final year.

Justices M.M. Sundresh and R. Hemalatha ordered notices to UGC and AICTE on public interest litigation petitions filed by E. Balagurusamy, former vice-chancellor of Anna University, and advocate B. Ramkumar Adityan to quash a government order issued on August 26, for cancelling the arrear examinations and declaring the students to have cleared all those papers.

Appearing on behalf of the former vice-chancellor, his counsel E. Vijay Anand said the State government had no authority to interfere in academic issues and order cancellation of examinations. Fearing that it might lead to lowering of the standards of education, he said the cancellation was against the instructions issued by the UGC and the AICTE.

However, Advocate General Vijay Narayan told the court that the government had cancelled the examinations by exercising its powers under the Disaster Management Act of 2005. He asserted that the decision was not in contravention of any guidelines or instructions issued by UGC or AICTE. He said the Supreme Court and UGC had insisted upon conduct of examinations through other modes, such as online, only for those in the final year and not for others. Hence, the government was fully competent to order the cancellation of exams for pre-final year students, he said.