The Supreme Court is slated to hear a petition concerning mode of assessment to be adopted to assess class 12 students of CBSE and ICSE boards after the class 12 examinations of both board were cancelled due to COVID-19.

The Court will also hear a plea seeking the cancellation of state board exams for the class 12 for the year 2021.

The petitions are being heard by a Bench of Justices AM Khanwilkar and Dinesh Maheshwari.

The hearing will start at 11 am. Live updates from the hearing below.

Justice Khanwilkar: we have the scheme before us formulated by CBSE and ICSE. Then we will interact with the applicants.

Senior Adv Vikas Singh: I am in favour of the exams.

SC: You want to appear as per the scheme you can whenever you wish

Justice Khanwilkar: the scheme is placed before us on affidavit. As last year if students are not happy with assessed marks they can appear for an exam. that option is available to improve your marks

Singh: The scheme by CBSE is not in public domain. cases have decreased to 60k

Singh: can we please have the scheme.

Justice Khanwilkar: it is there on affidavit and is before us

Singh: It is not served to us, petitioner has no locus. they are neither parents or students

Attorney General KK Venugopal appears for Union of India: Situation what CBSE and ICSE had to face is unprecedented. CBSE has been there from 1929 and we had to innovate so that we are fair to the students.

Committee of 13 experts was put together. Policy is explained in detail

Justice Khanwilkar: please forward the affidavit to Mr Vikas Singh and others in the meantime

AG Venugopal: Students will be able to get a certificate like an in person examination. We have produced a system where performance of students in each subject is reflected. CBSE has taken class 10, 11 and 12. 10 is board exam but subjects are different from 11 and 12

AG: They have taken 5 main subjects and best of the three and that is averaged out and the single number is arrived out. This is so far as class 10 is concerned. For class 11, unit exam, term exam and final exam taken into account, marks are deduced and averaged out.

AG: For 12th students, there are practicals. We will take 30 percent from 10th, 30 percent from 11th and 40 percent from 12th. That is how their marks will be arrived at.

AG explains the marks distribution by elaborating on a hypothetical scheme of marks.

AG: Practical will be 100 irrespective of the other marks.

AG: There may be schools where the policy may be to give as high marks as possible to gain preference over other schools, there is a reasoned committee for each of the thousands of schools.

AG: The result committee comprises of two of the most senior most teachers. If necessary, an expert will be invited.

AG: This committee will be the moderation committee. 3 years back there would not have been the anxiety to push the child to get certain marks. This is also because of the schools which try to get more marks than other schools

AG: The historical performance of the school, in terms of the best overall performance in the previous three years’ Board examination, will be taken as the reference for moderating the marks assessed by the school for 2020-2021.

AG: The subject wise marks assessed by the school for 2020-2021 should be within a range of +/- 5 marks obtained by the students in the school in the subject in the reference year.

AG: However, the overall average marks for the school assessed in 2020-2021, for all the subjects, should not exceed the overall average marks obtained by the school by 2 marks in the specific reference year.

AG: boards Policy for Qualifying Class-XII Examination In case, any student is not able to meet the qualifying criterion, he/she will be placed in “Essential Repeat” or “Compartment” Category.

AG: Students who are not satisfied with the assessment, done based on the policy will be given an opportunity to appear in examinations to be conducted by the board when conditions are conducive for holding the examinations.

AG: As per this policy, marks scored in later examination will be considered as final

Justice Khanwilkar: There is no mention of dispute resolution mechanism, after declaration of results, if there are disputes, there should be an in built mechanics, to address it. There were multiple writ petitions last year in that regard

SC: It should be built in scheme itself so that one does not have to look elsewhere

AG: A committee will be formed..

Justice Khanwikar: We want to know it will be a part of the scheme itself. So that students don't have to look elsewhere. Another issue is timeline about results declaration and outer limit for the exam which may be held

AG: No one has suggested the date when the situation becomes conducive

SC: way forward can be to take students number who are interested in appearing for the exam as most will be happy with the present arrangement. if number is small it can be held

AG: Declaration of result by CBSE will be by 31 July, 2021

SC: Please put in the scheme

AG: We will do it

AG: Number of suggestion may be made, we will note it down and consider them seriously. Let CBSE take a call into this

SC: Your autonomy is there, you are free to take your own decision. expert body is looking into it, we are happy about that

Justice Khanwilkar: For dispute resolution and outer limit of date for the next exam should not be left to the committee

Adv Mamta Sharma: All important points have been covered. we have no objection.

Senior Advocate Vikas Singh: There should be a physical examination, on the scheme we need two or three days to propose a note. However the internal exams of schools are non standardised. Ultimately only internal exam marks will determine the board marks and determine where they head to

Singh: CLAT is being held on July 23 and NEET too

Justice Khanwilkar: For CLAT, the number of students will not match the strength of CBSE students

Singh: Lakhs there too. COVID peaked in may and today it is 65,000

Justice Khanwilkar: Those who want physical exams will be able to appear for one. The result in that will be binding if your marks in averaging is more

Singh: To take a this call or that call is a roll of dice

Justice Khanwilkar: you are comparing education with roll of dice?

Singh: For CLAT all students will have to wear double masks and people have treated covid patients with it

SC: We are not going to review the policy which has been presented before us. We will give timeline to conduct physical exam and then you can appear if you are so keen

AG: If this case is adjourned then every single channel will take this up and debate this

SC: We have made it clear that mandatory exam will not be held, a timeline is needed on the optional exam

AG: All 20 to 30 channels will have debates with 20 to 30 experts on this

SC: We have given in principle approval. We will keep it tomorrow for final orders. There is no rolling back on the cancellation of exams. we are only having it tomorrow for optional exam.

Supreme Court: We have rejected the submission that conduct an examination now and cancel the CBSE cancellation policy. no roll back on scheme

Singh: I will make submissions only on the scheme

SC: That is fine.

Dr Charu Mathur for Youth Bar Association agrees to the CBSE proposal.

Senior Advocate JK Das for ICSE begins: We have taken marks from class 10 board, project and practical works, performance in school examination and we have taken the best marks. We have taken average from past six years and not three years like CBSE

Das: Only 10 students agreed to appear for a physical examination last year. Please give us time till July 30 for publication of results.

Advocate Amit Pai appears for an intervenor: July 31 may be a little late as the admission process has already started.

SC: There cannot be piecemeal declaration of results you can take provisional admission subject to final results

Supreme Court dictates order:

Justice Khanwilkar: CBSE and ICSE has submitted detailed scheme in principle evolved by an expert committee.

Justice Khanwilkar: Whereas ICSE has propounded a scheme somewhat different. (six years average and not three like CBSE). No prejudice will be caused to students who want to appear in this exam.

SC: appearing for the parent's body submitted that decision of CBSE and ICSE to cancel exams be revised. After hearing parties we have no manner of doubt that this scheme be taken forward. we have in principle accepted the scheme.

SC Order: in any case students will get an opportunity to appear in an exam to improve their marks. Prima face we have no reservation to accept the same and permit the boards to proceed on this basis. scheme must incorporate two aspects.

SC Order: First is dispute resolution in case students want correction of final results declared. second is about timeline for declaration of results and the date before which optional exam be conducted.

SC order: Since Mr Singh wants to preuse the scheme, we defer the final order till Monday, we clarify that it is only for suggestions on the scheme and the boards can proceed on the proposed scheme.

SC Order: CBSE and ICSE can notify their schmems incorporating the dispute resolution and timeline for results and optional exam

SC Order: Mr Singh proposes to give his note of suggestions before tomorrow on the scheme. we will hear the matter on Monday, June 20. Thus there is time to finalize the scheme and notify it.

Solicitor General Tushar Mehta appears for CBSE

Supreme Court records his appearence

Now Supreme Court takes up the plea to defer all state board exams

Justice Khanwilkar: Are all states appearing? Which states who did not cancel

Advocate: Assam, Punjab, Tripura and AP has not cancelled

SC: Serve their standing counsel

SC ORDER: Out of 28 states, 24 states have cancelled the class 12 board examinations. 4 states have not cancelled namely Assam, Punjab, Tripura and AP. The petitioners to serve the standing counsel of these four states. We are informed Kerala has not cancelled class 11 exams

SC ORDER: Serve the standing counsel of Kerala too.

Advocate Shashibhushan Agaonkar: 18 cancelled the exams, 6 states conducted the exam and 4 states did not cancel the exam

SC: We have noted it