Guwahati: A students’ body on Saturday asked the Gauhati University (GU) authorities to refund fees and other expenses of candidates who were to give the entrance examinations which were postponed indefinitely after a meeting of the institute’s admission committee on July 17.
This year’s exams for various postgraduate courses in GU were to be held from July 20. These were put on hold after the Gauhati High Court on July 15 stayed the test on the basis of a petition by some graduates.
The court, however, allowed the university to go ahead with admissions through the existing mode on merit basis.
The admissions were scheduled for July 28 and 29, and classes were to have begun from August 1.
“Some 50% of more than 20,000 students from across Assam had applied for the PG courses. The university has had a history of botching up admission tests and should have taken adequate measures when the court gave a ruling on a complaint by only four students,” Kashyap Choudhury, president of the Assam state committee of Students’ Federation of India (SFI), said.
The SFI asked the university to refund the candidates and compensate them for their disappointment as they could not study in the university of their choice.
GU officials declined to comment as the “court was involved,”but said counselling for admission to BTech courses had begun. These courses include biotechnology, computer science and engineering, electronics and communication and engineering and information technology.
On the entrance tests being put on hold, a lawyer of the petitioner explained: “GU had decided to hold the entrance test via a recent notice without amending its previous ordinance in which it had said that admission to PG courses would be done on the basis of merit of the candidates in their respective graduation results. The entire process was violating the existing ordinance.”
[“source-hindustantimes”]