Delhi HC seeks detailed report on functioning of CSCs for DU exams

new delhi: The Delhi High Court on Monday took issue with the Delhi University's submission that Common Service Centres (CSCs) across the country had been engaged only for the final examinations of students and not for mock tests. The court noted that such a decision would leave those students in a lurch who were dependent on CSCs for the exams, giving them no option to familiarise themselves with the new testing method.

A single-judge bench of Justice Pratibha M Singh was also told by the varsity that the list of students who would be engaging the CSCs across the country could not be provided at this time, drawing the court's ire, which remarked, "You should've done this exercise at the time of filling up of examination forms itself."

The high court subsequently sought a detailed report from the CSC Academy about the functioning of CSCs across the nation after it was informed that around 12,000 centres were not functioning owing to bureaucratic complications. The CSC Academy informed the court that while the Ministry of Home Affairs had exempted it from lockdown restrictions, in most states, local administrations have not allowed CSCs to operate.

Monday's hearing was in a fresh petition challenging the Delhi University's decision to proceed with the online Open Book Examinations (OBEs), seeking its cancellation. Like other petitions, this one also suggested evaluating students based on internal assessments, presentations, projects and scores of previous examinations. The court also issued a notice to the varsity, directing it to file a counter affidavit in the matter by July 30, listing the matter next for the day after that.

Meanwhile, DU informed the court that the OBE question papers would be sent to students through email. The varsity also said that students can email their answer sheets to the college in case they had difficulty uploading it to the central portal. Furthermore, the exams would be hosted on a cloud server empanelled with the IT Ministry.

Besides this, when the court asked what the university was doing to address concerns of students facing technical glitches during the online exams, the Delhi University said that a committee of four academicians had been constituted to look into the matter and submit a report within five days.