The Supreme Court on Thursday refused to postpone this year’s Graduate Aptitude Test in Engineering (GATE 2022) exams, stating that delaying the test might lead to ‘chaos and uncertainty’ among students. A Bench comprising of Chief Justices of India (CJI) NV Ramana, Justices AS Bopanna and Hima Kohli observed while hearing a plea seeking an interim stay on the GATE 2022.
Supreme Court refuses to postpone Graduate Aptitude Test in Engineering exam, 2022 (GATE 2022) in view of the third wave of COVID-19, saying postponement of the exam will create "chaos & uncertainty" among students pic.twitter.com/8sNnTVWD7y
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It is reported that over 9 lakh students appeared in the test at 200 centres and the centres have not issued any COVID appropriate guidelines for conducting the exam.
“With the current third wave, Covid-19 due to its new variant Omicron has spread severely in several states, cities. Several studies including one done by IIT Kanpur predict that the peak of the 3rd wave is expected in early February and the wave will end by April. Therefore, the peak is most likely to coincide with the usual exam dates of GATE,” the petition read.
The petition further read that if the exam dates are not postponed then the students will be at a high risk of getting infected and spreading the virus to their close ones posing a threat to everyone.
GATE is an examination that happens at a national level for various undergraduate subjects in engineering and science for admission into Masters programmes and recruitment by PSUs. IIT Kharagpur is conducting the exam from February 4-13.
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