-Dipta Joshi

The Supreme Court (SC) today dismissed the petition seeking cancellation of offline board exams for classes X and XII to be conducted by all educational boards – CBSE, CISCE, NIOS and other state boards. It further warned the petitioner to refrain from filing such public interest litigations (PILs) or face heavy penalties.  

The petition filed by Anubha Shrivastava Sahai, advocate and president, India Wide Parents Association on behalf of students wanted all education boards to adopt an alternate mode of assessment instead of physical exams.

However, the bench of Justices AM Khanwilkar, Dinesh Maheshwari and C T Ravikumar observed the petition was “ill-advised and premature” since the concerned boards are yet to announce the decision regarding the conduct of the exams. The court added “ If the decisions of the authorities are not in accordance with rules and the Act” aggrieved students could challenge the boards.

Dismissing the petition, Justice Khanwilkar said, such petitions “give false hopes to students” and entertaining such petitions “is only increasing confusion in the system”. Calling such petitions as misleading, Justice Khanwilkar asked the petitioner to refrain from filing such a PIL again warning the court would impose “exemplary costs”.

The writ petition filed Monday  (February 21) had stated that state boards had failed to take timely decisions regarding examination and declaration of final results impacting crores of class X and class XII students. With only a few state boards having announced the examination timetable and most others still holding discussions on the matter, the plea argued students were stressed and worried about their future and their career.

“The CBSE which conducted its term one exams last year (December 2021) has yet to announce its results. If the board exam results of various boards are delayed, the new academic year will be derailed. Such delay in results will have a grave impact on admissions to junior and senior college. What is needed is a time bound declaration of results which can be easily done taking into consideration the internals and pre-board assessments scores etc.,” says Sahai.

The CBSE’s (Central Board of Secondary Examination) second term exams are to be held April 26 onwards while the ICSE (Indian Certificate of Secondary Education) is expected to conduct class X and XII exams in the last week of April. Most state boards are expected to begin exams by the end of February or mid-March.

Also read: 44% students wanted board exams to be cancelled: Mindler survey