Chennai: Following the recent death of two students of a city college during an educational tour, the Madras High Court has ordered rescheduling of the third semester exam of Master of Social Welfare of the college, scheduled for saturday, to the first week of December.
Justice N Paul Vasanthakumar gave the direction to the University of Madras on a petition filed by a second year MSW student claiming that the students of the college were yet to recover from the trauma of the mishap. Counsel for university informed the court that the university was willing to reschedule the exam for Mar Gregarious College of Arts and Science, here, during December first week. The judge disposed of the petition filed by M Manikandan.
The petitioner submitted that 42 students of the college and two faculty members had gone to Nepal on the educational tour, which was part of the field work curriculum. On October 22, while the students were on a sight-seeing trip, the driver of the bus, on its way from Kathmandu to Pokhara stopped the vehicle at Psiling village and the team alighted. Over 10 of them started to walk over a `suspension` bridge, which suddenly gave way killing two students and injuring 10, including a faculty member. The students were undergoing post traumatic stress disorder treatment by Schizophrenia Research Foundation and were not in a position to write the exam. They had made a representation on October 27 for rescheduling the exam to the college principal, who in turn suggested to the University to consider the request as the students were unable to concentrate on the exam. PTI