The Supreme Court on Thursday, 20 August, dismissed a petition filed by students seeking the cancellation of compartment examinations to be conducted by the Central Board of Secondary Education for students who have appeared in class 10 and 12 board exams.
A three-judge bench comprising justices AM Khanwilkar, Dinesh Maheshwari, and Sanjiv Khanna dismissed the petition while adding that a ‘separate substantive’ petition needs to be filed since the board has issued clarification explaining why these exams need to be conducted.
What was the petition about?
The petitioners said that since it would be impossible for CBSE to conduct compartment exams anytime soon during COVID-19, the board should consider scrapping them altogether.
Stating that other states had already cancelled compartment exams, the petition said that if at all CBSE decides to conduct these exams, it must release dates for the same.
What did the court say?
Maintaining that CBSE has already given its reason for conducting exams in the notification, the bench dismissed the petition. However, it allowed petitioners the liberty to file a fresh plea challenging the CBSE notification.
“The CBSE has already given out the reasons in the notification. You file a petition challenging the notification.”Supreme Court
Which notification was the court referring to?
On 6 August, CBSE had said that although it had received multiple requests from students seeking cancellation of class 10 and 12 compartment exam, it could not go ahead with the same as it would adversely affect the future of students.
“If the compartment exams are not conducted, the future of a large number of candidates will be adversely affected,” CBSE had said.
The board had also said that it will hold these exams following the standard operating procedure.
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