On Thursday, a petition was filed in the Supreme Court (SC) with the demand to postpone the entrance examinations of the Joint Entrance Exam Main (JEE) and the National Eligibility Entrance Test (NEET) in view of the coronavirus crisis. Earlier, it was announced that the exams for JEE & NEET were scheduled to take place in the month of September.
As per media reports, the plea was filed by 11 students from 11 states who are concerned about the health and safety of all the students across the country, including their own. Their petition has urged the apex court to step in and delay the exams until the situation of the country returns to normalcy.
On July 3, the Union HRD minister Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank had announced that the entrance exam for JEE was scheduled from September 1 to 6, JEE Advanced exam on September 27 and NEET exam on September 13. Following this announcement, India Wide Parents Association wrote to the National Testing Agency (NTA) as well as the Education Ministry, seeking postponement of the exams. The association also cited previous examples to argue that conducting exams during a pandemic is not beneficial for the students.
Advocate Alakh Alok Srivastava, who is handling the plea at the SC, has also sought to the direction of urging the the authorities to increase the number JEE and NEET examination centres in every district of India. Meanwhile, India has crossed the 20 lakh mark and reported a total tally of 20,27,074 COVID-19 cases. As per the data provided by the Ministry of Health, the fatality toll in the country has reached 41,585.
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