The CBSE had earlier announced that the Class XII Economics re-examination would be held on April 25. Express Photo by Manoj Kumar
Written by Pritam Pal Singh
The Delhi High Court Monday sought responses from the Centre and the CBSE on a plea seeking a court-monitored probe into the recent Class X and Class XII question papers leak case even as the Supreme Court agreed to hear a batch of petitions challenging the CBSE’s decision to re-conduct examinations.
A bench of Delhi Acting Chief Justice Gita Mittal and Justice C Hari Shankar also issued notices to the Ministry of Human Resource Development and the CBSE asking them to submit their status report within 10 days and clear their position on whether the Class X Mathematics examination would be held again. The CBSE had earlier announced that the Class XII Economics re-examination would be held on April 25.
The bench also directed the Delhi police to apprise it of the investigation they have carried so far into the matter on the next date of hearing, April 16. The court issued the directions on a plea by an NGO, Social Jurist, which sought a court-monitored probe into the recent leaks of the CBSE Mathematics and Economics papers.
Advocate Ashok Agarwal, appearing for the NGO, urged the Delhi High Court that the Class X mathematics examination be held in April rather than July as proposed by the authorities, as students have to apply for different courses in India and abroad. In his submission, he also proposed the awarding of grace marks to students in both papers. The petitioner also submitted that differently-abled students would suffer the worst.
The CBSE counsel stated that so far only a decision on holding Class XII Economics paper had been taken and that an inquiry was still on to ascertain if the papers were leaked only in the Delhi-NCR region or across the country. While Delhi police Sunday had arrested three teachers, for allegedly leaking the Class 12 Economics paper 45 minutes before the examination, the Jharkhand police had arrested 12 in connection with the Class X Mathematics paper.
In the Supreme Court on Monday, a bench of Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justices A M Khanwilkar and D Y Chandrachud said since many petitions have been filed on the same issue, it would list them all for hearing on April 4. Petitioners Anasuya Thomas and Gayatri Thomas, aged 15, are students of an East-Delhi school and have, in their petition, moved through their father Jomy Thomas, questioned the CBSE’s decision to conduct the re-test in July.
In their petition filed by advocate Pallavi Pratap, the two students sought the setting aside of the CBSE decision on March 30 to conduct the re-examination of Class X Mathematics and to restrict it to only Delhi NCR and Haryana merely based on initial inquiries that the question paper leak was restricted to these areas.