A parents body has moved to the Supreme Court with plea for the Court to ensure that the JEE Main and NEET 2020 exams scheduled for September are not postponed further, reports Bar and Bench. The body sought directions to the NTA and MoE that the exams are held in the month of September.

The report says the plea under Article 32 was moved by the Gujarat Parents Association who said that any further postponement of exams will have an adverse impact, especially the loss of academic year for the students of 2020-21 batch.

This plea comes after a different parents body had written to the MHRD that the exams must be postponed keeping in mind the COVID-19 situation in the country. Also, last week, 11 students had moved to the SC for the postponement of the September exams

The plea from the Gujarat Parents Association said “These exams are so important that they determine students’ career and also the entire life. As such, the Respondent Authorities must take into consideration as a relevant factor the fact that any further deferment of the examination will further add to the stress levels of the students resulting in further traumatising the students with the uncertainty of their future and thereby severely impacting their academic performance in the ultimate examination to be held in future”, according to the report.

The plea also cited UGC’s decision to conduct all the final year exams before September 30 and seeks to bring parity with the UGC guidelines. The plea also pointed out that NTA and other bodies have successfully conducted exams amid the pandemic and counters the difficulties that others have cited with regard to conducting the exam in this situation.

The plea from students filed last week to SC said the government’s decisions to conduct the exam was “utterly arbitrary, whimsical and violative of the students’ fundamental right to life”. The petition had also said that conducting of these examinations at such perilous time will put lives of lakhs of young students at risk and danger of disease and death.

Meanwhile in the letter to MHRD, the parents body said that the exam should be postponed for December due to the COVID-19 situation and lack of enough exam centres which would make it difficult maintain physical distancing protocol.