Plea in Supreme Court to cancel Class 12 CBSE, ICSE exams in view of COVID-19

A petition has been filed before the Supreme Court to cancel class 12 board exams for both Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) and Indian Certificate of Secondary Education (ICSE) boards.

. The plea by Mamta Sharma, a Delhi based lawyer prayed that notifications issued by ICSE and CBSE postponing class XII exams to an unspecified date be struck down.

The petitioner instead urged that the exam be scrapped altogether for this academic year and marks be computed using the methodology employed last year.

. "Issue a writ of Mandamus directing the respondents to cancel the examination of Class XII and devise an objective methodology to declare the result of class XII within a specific time frame," the petitioner prayed.

. In this regard, the plea cited similar case of Amit Bathla v. CBSE which came up before the top court last year in which the Supreme Court directed the respondents to compute and declare the result of class 12 students on the basis of their earlier grading as their main final examination had been postponed and could not be conducted due to unprecedented situation caused by pandemic.

. Sharma pointed out that ICSE and CBSE have already accepted the severity of the COVID situation persisting in the country since they cancelled the class 10 board exams.

However, class 12 students have been meted out arbitrary treatment by merely postponing their exams instead of cancelling the same in view of the pandemic, she submitted.

. "As far as the innocent students of class XII, step motherly, arbitrary, inhuman direction have been issued to postpone their final examination for an unspecified duration instead of following the directions propounded and accepted by them last year," the plea stated.

. The plea further stated that in view of the unprecedented health emergency and rising numbers of Covid -19, the conduct of examination (either offline/online or blended) in upcoming weeks is not possible.

Delay in examination will cause irreparable loss to the students as time is the essence in taking admission in higher education courses in foreign universities, it was contended.

. Further the petitioner argued that it cannot be legitimately expected from the boards to remain a mute spectator over the current situation and not to take a timely decision in respect of examination and declaration of result of more than 12 lakhs students of class XII.

Plea in Supreme Court to cancel Class 12 CBSE, ICSE exams in view of COVID-19

Debayan Roy

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