The Supreme Court on Thursday rejected several petitions seeking to postpone the Graduate Aptitude Test in Engineering, or GATE, PTI reported.

The exam is scheduled to be held physically on February 5, 6, 12 and 13. The results will be announced on March 17.

A bench of Justices DY Chandrachud, Surya Kant and Vikram Nath said that postponing the exam 48 hours before its scheduled date could create chaos and uncertainty for students, Bar and Bench reported.

“We cannot start postponing exams like this,” the court said. “Everything is opening up now, we cannot play with careers of students like this.”

During Thursday’s hearing, the court noted that nine lakh students were to give the test while only 20,000 students had signed an online petition seeking to defer it, according to PTI.

“Only authorities can look into this,” the bench said before dismissing the petition. “Students have toiled hard for this.”

Advocate Satpal Singh, who appeared on behalf of one of the petitioners, said that many states had imposed weekend lockdown and thus, holding an exam in such circumstances would be unfair, reported Bar and Bench.

“How do we know that the situation will be better after a month?” Chandrachud said. “You will never have an absolutely clear situation in all states... Just because some states have issues, how do we play with the careers of all students who have been preparing.”

GATE is mandatory for admission to postgraduate programs (master’s and doctoral) and other government scholarships and assistantships.