SC Puts Interim Stay On Kerala's Decision To Hold In Person Class 11 Exams

 In Person Class 11 Exams in Kerala: The Supreme Court today has put an interim stay on the Kerala government's decision to hold Class 11 exams offline. They were scheduled to begin on September 6. The next hearing, in this case, has been scheduled for September 13.

The Supreme Court while taking this decision said that it is an alarming situation amid the rising cases of COVID-19 in the state. It added that "Children of tender age can't be exposed to the risk (of contracting the virus)". A bench of three justices AM Khanwilkar, Hrishikesh Roy and CT Ravikumar was hearing the petition. It was listening to a plea that challenged the decision of the Kerala HC to not interfere with the government's proposal to hold in-person exams.

Justice AM Khanwilkar led bench stays Class 11 exams (physical mode) in the State of Kerala commencing from September 5 for a week. #SupremeCourt observes "there is alarming" situation in the state owing to #COVID19 @vijayanpinarayi pic.twitter.com/7XNMhMas9X

— Bar & Bench (@barandbench) September 3, 2021

"I have been Chief Justice of Kerala and I can say Kerala has one of the best medical infrastructures in the country. Despite that, Kerala has not been able to contain Covid cases," Justice Roy said.

The state reported close to 13,500 cases per day in July and an average of 19,500 daily cases in August.

No mass vaccination programmes aimed at children under the age of 18 have been rolled out in Indian yet. On August 20, a government panel gave its nod to Zydus Cadila’s 3-dose COVID-19 Vaccine. It claims the vaccine to be safe for children between 12 and 18 years of age. It is called ZyCov-D. It has conducted a late-stage trial on more than 28,000 volunteers nationwide and showed an efficacy rate of 66.6% as per the reports. Its trial data, however, needs peer-reviewing. It will tentatively be rolled out in October as per reports.

Earlier, before the second wave of COVID-19 engulfed the country, in January 2021, around 31 teachers and students tested positive for COVID-19 following school reopening in the Gajapati district of Odisha. Similarly, 25 students of Lal Bahadur Shastri Kisan High School in Munger too tested positive.