[CBSE results] State of affairs at CBSE worrisome; students kept in dark about weightage to term exam marks: Delhi High Court

The Delhi High Court has held that there were glaring lapses in the conduct of the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) as it kept the students in dark till the very end regarding the weightage to be given to term exam marks while calculating the results of Class X and XII board exams for the year 2022 [Devasri Bali v CBSE and Anr]..Justice Chandra Dhari Singh said that a lackadaisical approach was adopted by the board while approving the criteria of the 30%-70% weightage formula for term I and term II respectively.The judge noted that there was nothing on record to suggest that any order had been passed by the chairperson of CBSE or any other competent authority accepting, enforcing and notifying the recommendations regarding the new weightage formula..Merely on the basis of the recommendation of the Result Committee - which met just a day before declaration of result - the Competent Authority decided to prepare the final result for Class XII and Class X by giving the 30% weightage to Term-I (for theory papers) and 70% to Term-II (for theory papers) and in a matter of hours, the results of lakhs of students were prepared and published the very next day, the Court said..Justice Singh held that this amounted to changing the rules of race after the race had ended and was outrageously arbitrary.“All of this does not paint a glossy picture. This state of affairs at the CBSE is nothing but worrisome. Manifest arbitrariness at such a large scale cannot be allowed to go on unfettered. By its conduct and representations in public by way of circulars, the CBSE has violated the legitimate expectation of the students, including the petitioner,” the Court said..The Court was dealing with a petition by a Class XII student, Devasri Bali demanding that her marks should be calculated using CBSE’s earlier formula, as stated in the July 2021 circular, where equal weightage was assigned to theory marks scored in Term I and Term II for preparation of Result.Bali stated that she qualified BITSAT 2022 entrance examination but due to the changed weightage formula she failed to meet the criteria of minimum 75% marks in the three subjects -- Physics, Chemistry and Mathematics – and, therefore, failed to secure admission.The Court was told that CBSE declare the Class XII result on July 22, 2022 and it was the very same day that it came up with a press release specifying that the competent committee of the Board had fixed 30% weightage of Term-I and 70% weightage of Term-II in theory for calculation of Result.It was argued that this change in evaluation was arbitrary and unfair and had resulted in violation of legitimate expectation of the student leading to the violation of rights under Article 14 and Article 21 of the Constitution of India..After deliberating on the doctrine of legitimate expectation, the Court said that it will not interfere with the revised scheme in the greater interest of students at large and to ensure that justice does not in itself become an agent of chaos.However, the Court allowed the petition and directed CBSE to calculate and declare the petitioner's result of the petitioner as per the 50-50 weightage formula declared in July 2021.“The revised Result/mark sheet thus prepared shall be uploaded, as expeditiously as possible, preferably within two working days from the date of this Judgment, on the DigiLocker for ensuring access to the petitioner,” Justice Singh ordered..Advocates Anusuya Salwan, Bankim Garg, Shakaib Khan, Rachit Wadhwa and Nikita Salwan appeared for the petitioner.ASG Chetan Sharma along with advocates Rupesh Kumar, Pankhuri Shrivastava, Amit Gupta, Saurabh Tripathi, Rishav Dubey, Sahaj Garg and Neelam Sharma appeared for CBSE.Union of India was represented through its standing counsel Rajesh Gogna, Devvrat Yadav GP, Vidit Jain, Digvijay and Priya Singh..[Read Order]