Top Court dismisses reconducting of CBSE class 10, 12 exams
NEW DELHI : The Supreme Court today dismissed five petitions challenging the CBSE’s decision to conduct a re-examination of the Class 12 economics paper after an alleged leak. The top court said it is the discretion of the Central Board of Secondary Education to conduct the re-examination and can’t be challenged in the court.
A bench of Justices SA Bobde and L Nageswara Rao asked the students who had challenged the CBSE’s decision to appear in the examination if conducted. Several petitions were filed before the apex court after the CBSE said on March 28 that the Class 10 maths and Class 12 economics paper had allegedly leaked.
The CBSE said yesterday that it has found after assessment there was no impact of alleged paper leak of Class 10 maths paper and no re-examination would be held. Besides challenging the CBSE’s decision, the petitioners also wanted a CBI probe into the alleged paper leak, saying several incidents were reported from various states and Delhi Police was not competent to hold the nation-wide probe.
Mathew and two others have moved the top court seeking quashing of the CBSE’s decision to re-conduct the Class 10 mathematics examination on several grounds, including violation of their fundamental rights. The petitions included one filed by 15-year-old Rohan Mathew to quash the decision of the CBSE to reconduct the exams. Mathew, a Class 10 student from a school in Kerala, had argued that the CBSE’s decision to cancel the Maths exam “merely on the basis of an unconfirmed apprehension” of a leak in Delhi has put the future of over 16 lakh students who appeared for the exam on March 28, in India and abroad, in peril.
Another petition was filed by sisters Anusuya and Gayatri Thomas to strike down the decision taken by the CBSE to confine the reconducting of the class 10 Maths paper to Delhi and Haryana alone.Supreme Court advocate Alakh Alok Srivastava had also moved t
he Supreme Court seeking a CBI probe into the paper leaks, saying the incident reflected a collective failure on the part of the Centre and its agencies to protect the children and their future.
Earlier, another plea was filed in the apex court by Reepak Kansal, a resident of Shakarpur here, challenging the decision of the CBSE to cancel and re-conduct the two papers.
“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,” the plea said.(With Agency Inputs ).
