The Supreme Court bench led by Justices AM Khanwilkar, Dinesh Maheshwari and Aniruddha Bose asked the Institute of Chartered Accountancy of India (ICAI) to come with a policy where a competent authority can issue a certificate explaining why a COVID positive student cannot appear for the CA July exams.
Supreme Court after hearing the petitioners directed ICAI to submit a point-wise notice tomorrow on issues that discussed today. A bench headed by Justice AM Khanwilkar, Dinesh Maheshwari and Aniruddha Bose also gave suggestions to the ICAI to relax conditions of RT-PCR tests and opt-out option on last-minute centre change. The court retained its order for Wednesday after ICAI agrees to give a second chance or grants opt-out.
The fate of over 3 lakh CA students is still hanging as the Supreme Court today again retained its order after hearing the pleas seeking relief for the CA students. The apex court today after hearing the matter made it clear that it will not pass directions to postpone the Chartered Accountancy (CA) exams. However, it agreed to consider the plea for granting opt-out for students who will not be able to appear for the CA July 2021 exams on account of restrictions imposed due to the COVID-19. According to the legal sources, a detailed deliberation took place in the court today over opt-out, vaccination, SOPs, exam center, and related issues of CA aspirants.
Elaborating further, on the question of opt-out of exams due to COVID-19, advocate Srinivasan said “We had given opt-out option to students who were down with COVID-19. ICAI has said that Chief Medical Officer can issue a certificate fr the students now”. He further said that “Those who face difficulty due to COVID-19 will be given another chance. Referring to the old course students, he said that these students had seven years to appear for the old syllabus exams”.
Should Read: Supreme Court to hear petitions regarding CA July exams today, know what’s on the table
Senior Advocate Meenakshi Arora presenting the petitioners marked the difficulty that students are going to face in getting RT-PCR positive test reports, as it has been made compulsory for opt-out. She further pointed out that July exams could be the last opportunity for the old syllabus students.
Appearing for the petitioners, Adv. Shashibhusna Adgaonkar called for vaccination of all the students appearing for the exams amid ongoing health crises. Questioning the court’s response she asked, “Can ICAI be directed on vaccination? We can not interfere in its policy which is pending before some other bench of Supreme Court. We cannot create class after class.” was the court’s response.
After taking note of all arguments raised by the petitioners, a three-judge Supreme Court bench directed the ICAI to submit a detailed point-wise notice on today’s issues on Wednesday. Now all eyes are on tomorrow’s possible verdict on opt-out and related petitions.
