NEW DELHI: The Delhi High Court has dismissed the plea of an 18-year-old student who was denied entry to the Common University Entrance Test (CUET) for arriving six minutes late. The court emphasised the importance of maintaining the “sanctity and discipline” of public examinations.
The student had approached the court after being barred from entering the test centre on May 13 at 8:36 am, six minutes past the scheduled gate closing time of 8:30 am.
A bench comprising Justices Prathiba M Singh and Rajneesh Kumar Gupta heard her appeal challenging an earlier order by a single judge, which had refused to intervene in her case.
The bench pointed out that both the National Testing Agency’s (NTA) information bulletin and the admit card clearly instructed candidates to report by 7 am, two hours before the examination started, and warned that entry would not be allowed after 8:30 am.
“The CUET is an important entrance examination and the discipline in arriving at the examination hall in time, taking the seat in time and being at the centre before the gate closing time, are all part of the discipline and ethos of the examination ecosystem which ought not to be relaxed, in as much as, the same may lead to huge inequities between similarly placed students,” the court said in its May 31 order. While acknowledging that it was a matter of “only six minutes,” the judges noted that such rules could not be bent without risking fairness for all candidates.
The court added, “One might feel that it was only a matter of six minutes, but the authorities could not be blamed for enforcing the rule of gate closing timings strictly and discrimination was not a valid ground to interfere.” Expressing sympathy for the student’s career impact, the bench said it had to uphold the discipline required in large-scale exams.
“The CUET UG is an exam where more than 13.54 lakh students from across the country appear. If exceptions are made, and discipline is not followed in such an exam, the timely conduct of the exam, the timely announcement of results and timely admission to colleges and Universities is all likely to be jeopardised and there would be a cascading effect. In such matters, the interference by the Court should be the least,” the court said. With that, the student’s appeal was dismissed.