Can’t treat tender minds with iron gloves: HC quashes CBSE action against student

The Karnataka High Court has quashed the punitive action taken by the CBSE to cancel the exam of a class 12 student for carrying her mobile phone into the exam hall. Tender minds, even when they commit some significant mistakes, cannot be treated with iron gloves, the court ruled.

Shuchi Mishra, a resident of JP Nagar, Bengaluru, said she had unmindfully carried the phone during the biology paper on March 14, 2020, but deposited it with the officials at 9.55 am, before the start of the exam.

Following an inquiry, the CBSE cancelled her exam for using "unfair means in terms of examination by-laws". According to the board, a four-member Unfair Means Committee had taken the decision after recording the versions of the student, her parents and considering the reports of the invigilator and the exam centre superintendent.

She could not take up the compartment exam in September and will have to appear under the 'full subject category' under new syllabus and course study. The student then moved the High Court.

Setting aside the punitive action, Justice Krishna S Dixit observed that it was nobody's case that the student had clandestinely stored the examination material on her phone. Although a student is expected not to carry the phone, the anxiety of young students going to the exams needs to be kept in mind, the judge noted.

"An extreme penalty of cancelling the very examination violates the rule of proportionality and it shakes the conscience of the court, to say the least; a warning which an ideal teacher would administer to an erring student of the kind in the given circumstances would have served the purpose. The petitioner shall consider herself as having been so warned, and the matter should rest here," the bench said.

The court directed the CBSE to hold the exam for the student with the same syllabus and the course study by December 31, 2020.