Yuva Sena from Maharashtra led by Aditya Thackerey has moved to the Supreme Court against the University Grants Commission’s decision for universities and colleges to conduct the final year examinations amid the COVID-19 pandemic, reports NDTV.

Thackrey who is also a Cabinet Minister in Maharashtra on Friday had said that the decision is “absolutely absurd and probably from an alternate universe”.

A statement issued by Yuva Sena, youth wing of Shiv Sena, said that the decision to conduct the final year examination ignores the physical and mental health along with the safety of students from across the country.

The statement also said, “COVID-19 is a national disaster, in view of which the UGC should have cancelled final year exams... however, it seems the UGC has not understood the full extent of dilemma the country is facing,”, reports NDTV.

In the petition, Yuva Sena pointed out that major educational institutions like IITs have already cancelled the final year exams. The process of conducting an exam is challenging amid the COVID-19 pandemic as students and invigilators have to travel to and from exam centres.

The petitions asked for students to marked based on internal assessment and previous scores. In case students want to improve their scores, they can appear for an examination in the future when it is deemed safe to conduct one, adds the report.

Thackeray had said in a tweet, “Unless, the HRD Ministry and UGC take responsibility for the health of each student appearing for exams, one wonders what is the guarantee apart from just that the ministry and UGC don’t realise the growing number of cases in India.”

At least states including the state of Maharashtra Odisha, Madhya Pradesh, Punjab and Haryana had taken a decision to cancel all the university and college exams due to the rising number of COVID-19 cases. However, UGC on July 6 had come up with a new set of guidelines stating that universities are supposed to conduct the final year examination before September 30.