SC gives time to Centre till Thursday to decide on Class 12 board exams

Authorities must come up with good reasons if they decide to hold exams: SC

The Supreme Court on Monday gave time to the Centre till Thursday to take a decision on the Class 12 exams by the Central Board of Secondary Education.

A bench of Justices A M Khanwilkar and Dinesh Maheshwari, however, made it clear to the Union government if the authorities wished to depart from the decision taken in the previous year of not holding the examinations then they must come up with good reasons to satisfy the court.

Attorney general K K Venugopal, at the outset, asked the court adjourn the matter as a meeting has been called to take the decision in the matter.

"You take a decision. But if you are departing from the decision taken last year not to hold the exams, you must give us good reasons," the bench said.

The court referred to petitioner, advocate Mamta Sharma's contention that last year's policy should be followed, saying the situation was almost similar the last year. Sharma, in her plea, asked the court to issue directions to the boards to cancel the Class 12 examinations, and devise an objective methodology to declare the result within a specific time-frame.

“The Covid -19 situation is more severe in comparison to last year and require the respondents to adopt the same criteria of assessing the grading/marks of class 12 students as done in the last year," she said.

The court may exercise its power under Article 142 of the Constitution to direct the boards to implement the methodology, adopted for Class 10, to declare the Class 12 result after cancelling the examinations, it pleaded.

"We will keep this in mind and give a response to the court by Thursday," Venugopal said.

The court wanted the decision, if at all made to hold the examinations, should be based on tangible reasons to enable it to analyse it. Sharma's plea sought quashing of notifications issued by CBSE and ICSE deferring the exams to an unspecified date, saying students cannot be subjected to suffer uncertainty amid unprecedented public health crisis.

Following the pandemic last year, the court had asked the boards to determine and declare Class 12 exam results on the basis of previous assessment of students.

The court posts the matter for consideration on June 3.