The Supreme Court directed the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) to relax conditions of RT-PCR Certificate and Give Opt-Out Option on Last Minute Centre Change.
The petition was filed by child rights activist, Anubha Shrivastava Sahai, the plea advocates that every district in the country should have at least one exam centre and students, appearing for the intermediate and final exams, must get an extra attempt.
Senior Advocate Meenakshi Arora submitted that the note submitted by the ICAI yesterday does not address many concerns raised by the students.
Ms. Arora, while pointing out the difficulty, said that “opt-out scheme” is given only for candidates producing COVID RT-PCR certificates after June 21. Due to lockdown and quarantine situations in many parts of the country, RT-PCR certificates may not be possible for many students.
Ms. Arora put forth the question that What if a particular candidate is residing in a containment zone or an area from where he cannot travel for any particular reason.
The Division Bench of Justices AM Khanwilkar, Dinesh Maheshwari and Aniruddha Bose observed that Positive RTPCR result may be difficult and while addressing the Senior Advocate Ramji Srinivasan, appearing for the ICAI said, “Mr. Srinivasan, this condition you are mentioning here. RTPCR may be very difficult because you don’t know. Persons who are not infected before 21 June will get infected. Those who have recovered also have long term problems. There are different situations”.
“A general approach can be adopted. If a certified copy from an official is given that he cannot appear for a genuine reason and can appear in the next exam. One possibility is I am infected or one possibility is that a family member is infected”, the court said.
However, the bench refused to accept the prayer made by Ms. Arora for waiving the articleship on account of pandemic. “You are asking for too much. That’s a part We cannot change it”, the bench said.
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