"Cannot intervene merely because we think policy is bad:" Bombay High Court refuses to entertain plea challenging cancellation of Class 10 exam

The Bombay High Court on Thursday refused to entertain a public interest litigation (PIL) petition challenging the decision of the Maharashtra government to cancel the Class 10 board examinations in the State.

. A Bench of Chief Justice (CJ) Dipankar Datta and Justice GS Kulkarni mused whether the petitioner would be willing to take responsibility if the students who go to write physical examination contract COVID-19.

"Is the situation now graver than last year? The second wave was more lethal. All over the country, States have cancelled exams," the Bench observed.

CJ Datta added that the decision to cancel the exam was a policy decision taken by the executive and the Court would ordinarily not intervene merely because it feels that the decision was wrong.

"When the executive has taken a decision, just because we think it is not a good policy, we cannot interfere. You have to show us how the public is affected by the policy decision," the Court said.

The petitioner had challenged the decision to cancel class 10 examinations with respect to all boards.

The hearing, however, largely revolved around the State board exams since other boards like CBSE and ICSE had clarified on the methodology they would be adopting to evaluate the students.

Advocate Uday Warunjikar appearing for the petitioner, Dhananjay Kulkarni, a retired professor, submitted that the decision to cancel class 10 exams would be detrimental to the interests of the students and their future.

. Warunjikar apprised the Court that the PIL sought Court's intervention on the apprehension that after cancelling the examinations, different education boards will come up with different formulas about the declaration of results and these different formulas will create confusion and will lead to hardship for students.

The Bench summarised the grievances in Kulkarni's petition.

Was the government right in cancelling the Class 10 examinations?

What is the mechanism for evaluating the marks of the students for promoting them to Class 11?

Advocate General Ashutosh Kumbhakoni submitted that the State would be conducting a Common Entrance Test for admission to Class 11 in premier institutes of the State.

He specifically stated that this examination will be an "option for students to get admission to the prestigious colleges of the State" .

"Student of any educational board can appear for CET for getting admission to the 11th class in a premier college in Maharashtra on merits," he submitted.

. Warunjikar informed the Bench that while the first grievance was taken care of by this submission, the evaluation criteria still remained.

Warunjikar cited the Government Resolution (GR) of May 28, to submit that students were expected to come physically for the internal assessments and practical examinations.

The Court, however, noted from the GR that these assessments would be conducted in batches, unlike the final exam where all students would have to congregate in one place simultaneously.

. It, therefore, concluded that nothing remained in the PIL and told Warunjikar to file a fresh petition with substantive evidence to challenge the GR on evaluation if he wished to challenge the same.

On instructions, Warunjikar agreed to withdraw the petition.

He however requested the Court to record Kumbhakoni's statement pertaining to the conduct of CET to which the Court acceded.

"Cannot intervene merely because we think policy is bad:" Bombay High Court refuses to entertain plea challenging cancellation of Class 10 exam

Neha Joshi

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