Distance learning: Apex court relief for graduates

NEW DELHI: Modifying its November 3, 2017, order suspending the engineering degrees granted between 2001 and 2005 to all graduates through distance learning, the Supreme Court on Tuesday granted ‘One-Time Relaxation’ to such candidates, many of whom were employed in various government departments.

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, January 23

Modifying its November 3, 2017, order suspending the engineering degrees granted between 2001 and 2005 to all graduates through distance learning, the Supreme Court on Tuesday granted ‘One-Time Relaxation’ to such candidates, many of whom were employed in various government departments.

A Bench of Justices AK Goel and UU Lalit directed them to appear in a test to be conducted by AICTE in May-June 2018.

“All such candidates, who wish to appear at the forthcoming test to be conducted by AICTE in May-June 2018 and who exercise option to appear at the test in terms of the judgment, can retain the degrees in question and all the advantages flowing therefrom till one month after the declaration of the result of such test or till July 31, 2018, whichever is earlier,” the Bench ordered.

The Bench, however, rejected petitions seeking a general relief for those who had diplomas and later completed BTech through distance learning, saying: “We cannot make any such exception. The infirmity in their degrees is basic and fundamental and cannot be wished away. At the same time, we find some force in their submission that if the suspension of their degrees and all advantages were to apply as indicated in the judgment, the candidates concerned may lose their jobs and even if they were to successfully pass the test, restoration of their jobs and present position would pose some difficulty.”

The top court said, “This facility is given as one-time exception so that those who have the ability and can pass the test in the first attempt should not be put to inconvenience.”

One-Time Relaxation

All graduates who received engineering degrees between 2001 and 2005 through distance learning have been directed to appear in a test that will be conducted by AICTE in May-June
The SC rejected petitions seeking a general relief for those who had diplomas and later completed BTech through distance learning
It clarified that ‘no more such chances or exceptions would be given or made’