The Supreme Court on Tuesday dismissed petitions challenging CBSE and ICSE decision to cancel the examinations and also approved the assessment scheme propounded by the Boards to evaluate students.
“We hold that there is no need to interfere with the scheme propounded by CBSE and ICSE. It takes into account concerns of all students,” the court said.
While justifying its decision to cancel the Board exams, the Centre told the Supreme Court: “Students› life is precious and they cannot be compelled to take examinations during the pandemic. If something happens to even one student, then his/her parents will sue the board.” There cannot be one uniform assessment policy for all boards including CBSE, ICSE and 32 state boards as all boards are autonomous and empowered to formulate their scheme, the Centre said. The Centre further argued that it will be against students› interest to give them only one option either to go for internal assessment or to appear in physical exams. It said that students be given both options and they can opt for exams if not satisfied with assessment.
The Supreme Court was hearing a joint plea filed by 1,152 students in the Supreme Court seeking direction to the CBSE for cancellation of CBSE Class 12 compartment exams, and demanding parity with regular students. The private, compartment students of CBSE Class 12 want cancellation of their examinations in physical mode and adoption of a formula for evaluation in line with the assessment formula adopted by CBSE for the regular students and to release the results in a time-bound manner. The CBSE and ICSE counsels responded to the queries in front of the special bench of Justices A.M. Khanwilkar and Dinesh Maheshwari on Tuesday.