Coming to the rescue of 23-year-old Srinivas, the High Court of Karnataka has asked Karnataka State Open University (KSOU) to honour the marks card issued to him declaring that he had passed the exam in Education subject following revaluation. It quashed the university’s action of withdrawing the marks card after he was found to have failed in the third valuation.
The petitioner had appeared for his B.A examinations in April-May 2013 and had failed in the Education subject. He applied for revaluation of the answer script and secured the marks required to pass. Following this, the university issued him a marks card declaring him as passed.
However, KSOU on September 24, 2015 issued an endorsement asking him to return the marks card and told him to reappear for the exam as he was found to have failed in the subject after his answer script was sent for a third valuation, as per the university’s norms given the difference in marks obtained in first valuation and revaluation.
The university told the court that the pass mark secured by the petitioner in revaluation was wrongly fed into the computer. As a result of a lapse on part of KSOU officials, a marks card was issued to Mr. Srinivas before the answer script could be sent for third valuation.
But the court observed that the university’s case was not that the petitioner was culpable in any way for the confusion. Pointing out that “much water has flown under the bridge and reverse flow at this point of time is not possible”, Justice Krishna S. Dixit said, “... for the fault of the university, a student cannot be put to prejudice, especially when the second valuation had admittedly yielded him passing marks. Justice of the case requires that the impugned endorsement be set at naught and the result of examination of the petitioner be left unimpeached.”