Karnataka High Court upholds earlier directive not to use new SSLC grading system for 2025-26 exams

The Karnataka High Court on Tuesday refused to entertain the State's plea to review the correctness of an April 15 directive not to use a recently revised Secondary School Leaving Certificate (SSLC) evaluation system to compute marks for the 2025-26 SSLC exams [The State of Karnataka v Sahana R Naik].

Justice ES Indiresh passed the order after hearing rival arguments by the State and counsel representing SSLC students who were opposed to new evaluation system.

Advocate General Shashi Kiran Shetty represented the State. He highlighted that a large number of students were held back in Class X merely because they were unable to pass in a third language subject. The new scoring system is meant to address this situation, the Court was told.

A student's counsel, however, countered that the new system would unfairly reduce the marks of students who scored well in third language subjects. Excluding their third language subject scores would result in a decrease in their expected overall percentage, he said.

The Court noted that draft rules on the new SSLC evaluation system were introduced after the SSLC exams were conducted. It further observed that these draft rules - which seek to amend the Karnataka Provisions and Karnataka School Examinations and Assessment Board Act, 1966 - are yet to be notified by the State.

The Court proceeded to stand by its earlier directive not to implement the new evaluation method for the recently held SSLC exams.

"Regular notification (on the new rules) is yet to be passed by the petitioner State. In that way of the matter, there is no rules as on today, unless said rules is promulgated in a manner known to law," the Court reasoned.

The new evaluation system proposes to grade third-language subjects individually, and not factor them in computing a student's final SSLC marks.

In other words, a student's performance in a third-language subject would not affect their pass or fail status, under the revised system.

On April 15, Justice ES Indiresh observed that this new evaluation was not notified when students had taken the SSLC exams for the academic year 2025-26.

He, therefore, restrained the State from using the revised grading system for the 2025-26 exams. The Court reasoned that the State could not have changed the rules after the students took the exam as it would amount to changing the rules of the game midway.

"The rules which was prevailing as on the date of the issuance of the notification for conducting the examination for the academic year 2025-26 shall prevail," the Court's April 15 ruling said.

The State had challenged the correctness of this order by filing a review petition.

Notably, the State had also challenged the correctness of a remark in the April 15 ruling that "any subsequent modification" to the rules would violate Article 14 of the Constitution of India.

The State contended that declaring any such subsequent modification as unconstitutional could affect the State's ability change the rules for future exams.

The Court found force in this concern and ordered a limited modification of its earlier order to address the same. The State's review petition was accordingly closed.