Karnataka board exam row: SC raps state government, orders stay on board exam results for Classes 5, 8, 9, and 11

'You have spoiled the entire education system of the country and now you want to complicate it. Please do not do that,' the top court told the Karnataka government's counsel.

New Delhi: Hours after announcement of results for board examinations for classes for 5, 8, 9, and 11 in Karnataka, the Supreme Court ordered the state authorities to keep it in abeyance and not consider it for any purpose whatsoever. It also rebuked the state government for playing with future of students and causing hardships to their parents.

"This is the classic instance whereby none else than the State Government of Karnataka has sought to create a havoc and great distress not only amongst the students and their parents, but also amongst the teachers and the School Managements in the State of Karnataka," a bench of Justices Bela M Trivedi and Pankaj Mithal said.

The court stayed the operation and implementation of the Karnataka High Court's order of March 22, allowing the state government to conduct the board examinations.

"The order passed by the division bench prima facie does not appear to be in consonance with the provisions contained in the RTE Act and with the settled tenets of interpretation of statutes," the bench said.

The court also stayed the April 6 order by the Karnataka School Quality Assessment and Accreditation Council for declaration of results till further orders.

"The manner in which the order has been passed on April 6 for declaration of results before 9 AM on Monday, it smacks of the ill-intention on the part of the State to see to it that the order of the High Court may not be challenged by the petitioners and if challenged, the petitions may become infructuous," the bench said.

Hearing a petition by Organisation for Unaided Recognised Schools & Reg (Our Schools), the bench severely criticised the state government.

"It appears that the State is anyhow bent upon playing with the future of the students and cause mental agony and physical hardships to the students, their parents, their teachers, as also to the School Managements," the bench said.

The petitioner led by advocates K V Dhananjay and A Velan contended the division bench did not grant them any time to approach the top court to challenge the order.

The state government also speedily proceeded with the board exams in extremely hurried manner and directed to schedule the exams on 25th, 26th, 27th and 28th of March Classes 5th, 8th and 9th, when the 10th Board exams were also scheduled, causing tremendous hardships to the students, their parents and the teachers, they said.

"As if, this was not enough, in order to see that the petitioners do not get any relief from this court, on Saturday, i.e., on April 6, 2024, in the late evening hours, an order was issued by the Karnataka School Quality Assessment and Accreditation Council, directing all the School Head Teachers / Principals (through Block Education Officers) to compulsorily publish the evaluation results for the standards 5th, 8th and 9th before 9.00 A.M. on April 08, Monday," they said.

The order also stated under no circumstance, should there be a delay in publishing the results and the Deputy Director (Administration) and Block Education Officer shall ensure that the results shall be published in all the Schools by the Head Masters/Principals and shall inform the Board accordingly, they pointed out.

Even though the teachers had raised objections against evaluation of 1.66 crores answer sheets of Classes 5th, 8th and 9th Board exams in the shortest possible time and the schools had complained of errors in the evaluation of the answer sheets, the order was issued making it compulsory for the School Managements to publish the evaluation results for the said classes, before 9 am on April 8, the petitioner said.

After hearing the petitioner, the court stayed further action in the matter, saying results declared by any school would be kept in abeyance and not be taken into consideration for any purpose whatsoever, nor should they be communicated to the parents, if not communicated so far.

The court, while issuing notice to the state government, put the matter for consideration on April 23.

On March 22, a division bench comprising Justice K Somashekar and Justice Rajesh Rai K directed the state government to resume the examinations, while upholding the notifications pertaining Summative Assessment examination/board exams for classes 5, 8, 9 and 11.

The bench set aside the order of the single bench and directed the state government to hold the remaining assessment for classes 5, 8 and 9 as well as to resume the process.

On March 12, the Supreme Court had set aside an interim order of the HC's division bench order allowing the state government to conduct board exams for the summative assessment of students of classes 5, 8, and 9 as per the schedule.

"You have spoiled the entire education system of the country and now you want to complicate it. Please do not do that," the top court told the Karnataka government counsel in strong observations.

The court had then asked the division bench to decide main appeals in accordance with law as expeditiously as possible.

The single judge had earlier quashed the state’s decision to hold board exams for classes 5, 8, 9, and 11 from the academic year 2023-24. The high court declared that said decision was taken without following the due process of law as prescribed under the provisions of the Karnataka Education Act, 1983.