The Supreme Court on Friday gave the much-awaited verdict around the UGC exams 2020, stating that the students will have to appear for the exams in order to get promoted but also added that the September deadline for holding these can be extended. The apex court has ruled that while the examinations can be cancelled by the states under the Disaster Management Act, the degrees cannot be granted.  

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The states can, in turn, approach UGC to get extension of the deadlines. The UGC Guidelines have been upheld by the apex court. 

There were multiple petitions in the Supreme Court. While one petition asked for UGC Guidelines to be quashed, the petition filed by the Yuva Sena Chief Aditya Thackeray was challenging the UGC's decision to conduct the examination while the Maharashtra State Government had ordered the exams to be cancelled.  

The apex court said that the states have precedence over UGC under the DM Act. This is why they can cancel the University examinations. However, degrees cannot be granted to those in the final year of their education.  

Hence, while the state government can cancel the examination, it cannot decide to promote the students without the examinations. The state governments can, however, reach out to UGC to extend the deadline of September 30, if the situation is not conducive to conduct the examination.  

In August, the UGC had questioned the decisions of Delhi and Maharashtra states to cancel final year exams. Such decisions, said the central college body, "directly affect the standards of higher education and will be an encroachment on the legislative field of coordinating and determining the standards of higher education that is exclusively reserved for parliament under the constitution".