DECLARE SECOND SEMESTER results of students pursuing optometry course: HC to UGC

In an interim relief to 40 students from here pursuing a course in optometry, the Bombay High Court has directed the University Grants Commission (UGC) to declare the second semester results of such students that has remained pending since last year.

A bench of Justices R M Sawant and S V Kotwal was earlier this week hearing a petition filed by Lotus College of Optometry, which had admitted the 40 students as the first batch of its four-year BSc degree in Optometry (health specialists in eye care) in 2016.

The course was affiliated to an open university. However, a question mark now looms over the fate of the course as well as that of the students since, soon after their first semester exams in 2016, the Maharashtra government issued a communication to the UGC stating that Optometry was a medical course and therefore could not be affiliated with an open university.

As per the current rules of the state government, all medical courses are governed by the process laid down by the Maharashtra Medical Sciences Authority.

However, since the Juhu college had already admitted the above students, it moved the High Court challenging the above communication.

While a hearing on the main plea is pending in the HC, various benches of the court have been issuing orders from time to time to help the above students appear for their semester exams.

Following directions of the court, the students were permitted by the state and the UGC to appear for their first, second, and third semester exams.