Supreme Court dismisses petitions filed by students challenging CBSE’s decision to conduct re-examinations. (Express Photo by Tashi Tobgyal)
The Supreme Court on Wednesday dismissed five petitions filed by students, who challenged CBSE’s decision to conduct a re-examination of the Class 12 Economics paper after an alleged leak. After dismissing the petitions, the apex court directed the students to appear in the examination if conducted. A bench comprising of Justices S A Bobde and L Nageswara Rao said it’s the board’s discretion to conduct the re-examination and it can’t be challenged in the court.
Stating that several incidents regarding the paper leak were reported from various parts of the country and claiming Delhi Police was not competent to hold a nation-wide probe, the petitioners also demanded for a CBI investigation into the matter.
The board, earlier this week, had announced April 25 as the re-examination dates for Class 12 economics paper throughout the country. Rohan Mathew, a 15-year-old student, had moved to the top court seeking quashing of the CBSE’s decision to conduct the re-examination of the Class 10 Mathematics paper on several grounds, which includes violation of an individual’s fundamental rights. He also sought for the results to be declared on the basis of the examinations which were conducted earlier.
READ | CBSE decides against holding a retest of Class 10 maths paper
Another plea filed in the court by Reepak Kansal, a resident of Shakarpur, New Delhi said: “It is to be noted that this year, 16,38,428 students are appearing for the Class 10 and 11,86,306 students for Class 12 in the CBSE examinations. And therefore, to penalise the student community for an incident which is under investigation and without completion of that investigation/enquiry and issuing a notice on March 28, 2018 (for re-exams), affects the fundamental rights of students which is arbitrary, illegal and unconstitutional.”
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The board on Tuesday revised its decision and cancelled the re-examination of Class 10 Maths paper, stating that it found no major impact after the assessment into the alleged paper leak. Several petitions were filed before the Supreme Court after CBSE announced on March 28 that re-examinations of Class 10 Maths and Class 12 Economics paper would be conducted after reports about alleged paper leaks surfaced from several parts of the nation.
(with inputs from PTI)