Apex court stays offline exams in Kerala amid ‘alarming’ Covid spike

NEW DELHI: Not willing to compromise on the safety of children in Kerala, the Supreme Court said on Friday, as it stayed the state government’s decision to conduct offline exams for Class 11 from Monday amid what judges described as an “alarming” Covid-19 situation.

On Friday, Kerala reported 29,322 new Covid-19 cases and 131 deaths, taking the state’s cumulative tally to 4,151,455. The toll in the state has reached 21280. The test positivity rate – the number of samples that test positive – in the past week stands at 18.4%, while average of 29,307 cases per day were reported in the state in the last week.

“There is an alarming situation in Kerala. With over 30,000 cases reported daily, the state alone accounts for nearly 70 per cent of cases reported in the country. Children of tender age cannot be exposed to any risk in this situation,” observed a bench of justices AM Khanwilkar, Hrishikesh Roy and CT Ravikumar. The bench was hearing an appeal, filed by advocate A Rasoolshan, against the Kerala high court’s refusal to interfere with the state government’s decision on holding physical exams.

Challenging the high court decision, the petitioner told the top court that holding physical exams was a huge risk since children have not yet been vaccinated. According to the petitioner, about 350,000 students are expected to take the exam.

Acknowledging the petitioner’s concern, the top court bench said: “Prima facie, we find force in the submission made by the petitioner that the state government has not seriously considered the prevailing situation before deciding to conduct physical examination (for Class 11).”

But the Kerala government, represented by advocate CK Sasi, said that the state has taken all precautions, asserting that Class 10 and 12 examinations in April were held without any problems. The bench then asked: “Is the TPR then in April and now the same?”.

“Can you assure us that not a single child will be infected? Even if one case gets reported, we will hold you accountable,” it added.

“I cannot give that assurance,” Sasi said in response.

“As we could not get any satisfactory response from the state government, we grant interim relief staying the offline examination till the next date of hearing,” said the bench.

“Kerala has one of the best medical infrastructures in the country. Despite this, the state has not been able to contain the number of cases (due to Covid),” the court observed, adding that it felt allowing unvaccinated children from different parts of the state to gather at an examination centre could turn into a potential “superspreader” event.

The top court bench issued a notice on the petition to the Kerala government and put the examination on hold till September 13 — the next date of hearing.

In July, too, the state’s decisions to relax curbs before Eidul-zuha also invited SC ire.

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