CHENNAI: Dashing the hopes of worried parents and teachers, a division bench of the Madras High Court on Monday merely adjourned to June 11 further hearing on the batch of PIL petitions challenging the conduct of Class X public exams rescheduled to commence from June 15, without passing any interim order, on Monday.
During the arguments in the morning session, the bench of Justices Vineet Kothari and R Suresh Kumar grilled the government counsel with a series of questions, which raised the hope that the bench may pass some interim orders against holding the exams from June 15.
However, the arguments advanced by Advocate-General Vijay Narayan in the afternoon changed the whole scenario. He told the judges that it is the right time to hold the exams from June 15 as scientists and eminent doctors in the field have predicted that the situation may worsen with more people testing positive for COVID-19 in the near future, adding that the tally may go beyond two lakhs mark.
He said all precautionary measures will be taken to ensure the safety of the students writing the exams and the teachers. Many other states in the country had already conducted the exams. Moreover, the Centre has also granted its approval for holding the exams from June 15, Narayan added.
The judges also asked what was the necessity to take up the risk and who will own responsibility if a student dies, apart from payment of compensation. However, following the submission of Narayan that the government will ensure the safety of the students and the teachers and that a batch of similar petitions challenging the original date of exam in March was also postponed to June 11, the judges tagged the present petitions too along with them and posted the matter further hearing on that date with a direction to the AG to file a detailed counter with regard to the safety measures to be taken up for holding the exams.