Decide representation on refund of Maharashtra State Board exam fee within 4 weeks: Bombay High Court to Maharashtra Education Board

The Bombay High Court recently directed the Chairman of the Maharashtra State Board of Secondary and Higher Secondary Education to decide the representation made for refund of fees collected towards Class 10 and 12 examinations as the exams were cancelled due to the pandemic. (Pratapsing Ganpatsing Chopadar v. Chairman, Maharashtra State Board of Secondary & Higher Secondnary Education & Anr).A Bench of Chief Justice Dipankar Datta and Justice GS Kulkarni directed the Chairman of the Board to decide the representation at the earliest but not later than 4 weeks from the service of the order.The Bench expressed their hope that if the Chairman finds the request to "be of substance, an order for refund of either the entirety or part of the examination fees to the students" will be passed. They also clarified that in the event the Chairman cannot accept the request, a reasoned order be communicated to the petitioner, Pratapsing Chopadar, retired principal from Sangli district of Maharashtra. .The directions came in a public interest litigation filed by Chopadar seeking directions to the Board to refund the examination fees to students. Pending hearing of the PIL, he had sought for the equivalent amount to be deposited in the Court. .In the representation addressed to the Education Board, Chopadar stated that parents deposited the exam fees for their wards towards the Class 10 and Class 12 examination despite impediments. Due to this, the Education Board received crores of rupees from every district of Maharashtra towards the Secondary School Certificate examination (Class 10) and the Higher Secondary examination (Class 12). .Chopadar further added that the Board had recovered Rs. 420 per student for SSC exam and Rs. 520 per student for HSC exam. He assured the Court that he had no personal interest in the matter, however these proceedings had been initiated "to benefit the poor parents for whom the paltry examination fees might have been an ordeal"..Advocate Manoj Shirsat appearing for Chopadar informed the Court that since figures for the present academic year were not available, only the previous year figures were referred to.He apprised the Court about statistics of previous year - that about 17,65,829 students had registered for Class 10 examination and 15,07,314 students registered for Class 12 examination to be conducted in the year 2020. Calculating the amount of fees per student, Shirsat claimed the Board had collected around Rs 150 crore from students of both examination.Now that the examinations had been cancelled after the decision of the State government, the Board was required to refund the fees, Shirsat stated. .Shirsat submitted that while Chopadar sent the representation in June 2021, he had not received any response from them which compelled him to approach the High Court..After passing the directions to the Chairman to consider the representation, the Bench disposed of the PIL finding no reason to keep the same pending with directions to serve a copy of the order to the Chairman of the Board. .[Read order]