Nagpur : In a major respite to the students of Industrial Training Institutes (ITIs), the Nagpur bench of Bombay high court on Tuesday lifted its stay on the results of ‘All India Trade Test’.
While disposing of the plea, a division bench comprising justices Ravi Deshpande and Vinay Joshi noted that the court expects the Maharashtra government to regularly conduct the test from April next year.
The petition was filed by two students — Selaindra Gujar and Kunal Humane — contending that they were being forced to appear in offline exams even as online version was implemented in the entire country long time ago.
The then division bench of justices Bhushan Dharmadhikari and Zaka Haq on August 8 granted a stay on the results of ‘All India Trade Test’ while allowing respondents to conduct it in July.
Through counsels Anand Parchure and Tejas Deshpande, the petitioners contended that on June 26, 2015, Union ministry issued a communication to all states expressing its intention to conduct online test for semester pattern from January 2016. On April 3, the ministry released the programme for ‘All India Trade Test’, following which the state directorate informed all its regional offices about conducting exams scheduled in July.
A list of centres was thereafter published for the second and fourth semester exams with Nagpur getting over 60 centres. The joint director took opinion of ITI colleges’ principals about the possibility of any inconvenience faced by the students in online mode. Some colleges were then allowed to conduct the test in offline mode in Nagpur, Nashik and Pune after receiving several objections by the directorate.
The petitioners then lodged a complaint with the directorate that while most of the centres were allowed to conduct online test, some granted permission to hold it offline, which would be at their disadvantage. They knocked the judiciary’s doors after all their pleas fell on deaf ears.
They added Union minister of skill development, through its director general, National Council of Vocational Training through member secretary, director and joint director of state vocational education directorate, and principal secretary of state skill development department, as respondents in their petition.
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