New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Thursday, dismissed the pleas seeking postponement of the Graduate Aptitude Test in Engineering (GATE 2022) scheduled to be held on February 5, 6, 12 and 13.
The bench of Justices DY Chandrachud, Surya Kant and Vikram Nath said that it is a matter of academic policy as to when the examination should be held and the court cannot enter this arena. It noted that nine lakh students are to appear in the examination and around 20,000 students have signed an online petition for postponing the examination.
“The students have prepared for it and the court cannot play with the career of the students by postponing the examination”, the bench observed. On Wednesday, the top court had agreed to list the plea seeking postponement of GATE. The plea for postponement of the examination said that nine lakh students are appearing in the test at 200 centres and the authorities have not issued any Covid-appropriate guidelines for conducting the exam.
Thousands of students who will appear in the GATE have demanded the postponement of the exam considering the Covid-19 pandemic situation. The candidates have also joined a petition demanding the exam to be deferred.