Ministers from six Opposition-ruled states, led by Bengal law and labour minister Moloy Ghatak, on Friday urged the Supreme Court to postpone by six to eight weeks this year’s all-India engineering and medical entrance tests keeping in mind the Covid crisis.

The National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET) for undergraduate medical and dental courses is scheduled on September 13; and the JEE Main for engineering courses from September 1 to 6. Some 25 lakh students are expected to take these exams.

The IIT-conducted JEE Advanced, which the best 2.5 lakh performers in the JEE Main can take, is scheduled on September 27.

Besides the pandemic, which the petitioners say is having a psychological effect on the students apart from its threat to physical health and constraints on studying, the petition also cites the floods in various states to seek postponement of the exams.

The joint petition, expected to be heard on Monday, seeks a review of the Supreme Court’s August 17 judgment that upheld the authorities’ decision to conduct the NEET.

Hearing a batch of petitions from students seeking postponement of the exam or its conduct in the online mode, the court had ruled that cancellation or postponement would force the students to lose an academic year and affect their future careers.

While the court had passed the judgment only on the conduct of the NEET, the petitioners have now also sought postponement of the JEE.

“If the Impugned order dated 17.08.2020 is not reviewed then grave and irreparable harm and injury would befall on the student community of our country and not only will the health, welfare and safety of the students/ candidates appearing for the NEET/JEE examinations would stand imperilled but also the public health at large would be in severe jeopardy in these Covid-19 pandemic times,” the petition says.

“The Union government has created an unfortunate situation whereby the students/candidates may become vectors and carry the infection back to their homes and put their parents, grandparents, family, relatives and friends at risk of infection. This multiplier effect will be disastrous for the health of the nation.”

Apart from Ghatak, the petitioners include Rajasthan finance minister Rameshwar Oraon, Jharkhand health and family welfare minister Raghu Sharma, Chhattisgarh food and civil supplies minister Amarjeet Bhagat, Punjab health and family welfare minister Balbir Singh Sidhu, and Maharashtra higher and technical education minister Uday Ravindra Samant.

Filed through advocate Sunil Fernandes, the petition seeks the postponement of the exams “in a manner that achieves the twin objectives of ensuring that the academic year of the students (2020-2021) is not wasted and their health and safety is not compromised”.

“The Union government must ensure that the present dates of the examinations are postponed at least by 6 to 8 weeks and ensure that the academic session commencing by January 2021 and the academic year of the students are not lost,” Fernandes said.

“Postponing the examination by 6 to 8 weeks would give adequate time to the Union government to make adequate transportation i.e. special buses, trains and flights in consultation with the state governments so that the students have a hassle-free and safe access to their examinations centre.”

The petitioners have also cited logistical difficulties: “Such large movement of people (25 lakh examinees travelling to the exam centres and back) will prove a serious health hazard and defeat the twin present-day solutions we have of combating the Covid-19 pandemic i.e. social distancing and avoidance of large public gatherings.”

They find it “ironical” that the exams were postponed in early summer when the number of the Covid-infected was much smaller “and now, when the daily spread of the virus is at its peak, the examinations are directed to be conducted forthwith”.

“Now the Union government has suddenly woken up to realise that their inertia (in combating the pandemic) is going to cost lakhs of students their academic year and therefore as a knee-jerk reaction, (it) has haphazardly and hurriedly fixed the dates of the examinations, which remedy will prove worse than the disease itself,” the petition says.

It argues the students are in no frame of mind “to appear in probably their most important and life-defining examination”.

“It is of utmost importance that the correct and healthy mental and psychological environment is created so that the students can give their best performance,” it says.

The petition also highlights the floods in “Bihar, As-sam, Arunachal Pradesh and parts of Meghalaya in July; Mumbai, Konkan and Karnataka in the first week of August; and flash floods in parts of Rajasthan on August 15”.