The Supreme Court on Friday struck down a condition specified in a clause in the CBSE’s evaluation policy of June last year which stated that marks obtained in the later examination will be considered as final for assessing class 12 students.
A bench of Justices A M Khanwilkar and C T Ravikumar said the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) shall provide an option to the candidate to accept the better of the two marks obtained in the subject for the final declaration of his or her results for the last academic year.
The apex court, which was hearing a plea filed by some students who had appeared in the CBSE exams last year for improving their marks in class 12, noted that a grievance has been made about the provision in clause 28 of the June 17, 2021 policy which stated that “as per this policy, marks scored in later examination will be considered final”.
“As a result, we have no hesitation in striking down the condition specified in clause 28 that as per the policy, marks scored in later examination will be considered final,” the bench said.
The top court noted that the petitioners have the grievance that this condition has been inserted in departure of the earlier schemes where the better of the two marks obtained by a candidate in a subject was to be considered for final declaration of results.
It observed that the CBSE has not given any justification for such a departure.
Last year, the CBSE class 12 board examination was cancelled due to the pandemic.
The bench, which disposed of the plea, said the policy was required to be adopted because of the challenging situation faced by the students and this itself justifies making a provision which is more favourable to the students.
At the outset, the counsel appearing for the CBSE said these students have been assessed as per the improvement examination, and now they cannot take advantage of the policy.
“How does it affect you? Give us the justification, why this is not possible,” the bench observed.
While hearing the matter last month, the apex court had said the CBSE should consider the problem of those students who had appeared in the examinations last year for improving marks in class 12 but obtained less marks, as it will affect the admissions secured by them for higher studies.
[“source=indianexpress”]
