In a turn of events, the Supreme Court of India has questioned the intent of the board regarding clause 28 of its exam policy. Recently, a student body has filed a petition with the Supreme Court seeking justice on the absurd clause put forth by the central board regarding class 12th improvement exams. The matter was today taken up by the SC bench chaired by Justices AM Khanwilkar and CT Ravikumar. While analyzing the entire situation, the honorable court sought the necessary explanation from the board regarding this whole matter.
What’s the matter?
Earlier, CBSE has introduced a new policy that stated that marks scored by the candidates in the improvement exams shall be treated final even if the marks scored are less than the class 12 exam. This clause didn’t go well with most of the students who were unhappy and rather feel cheated by the board.
Now, the apex court has ordered the board to give an option to students wherein they can decide the better of the two marks they wish to consider for the final admission. Although the counsel for the board said that it has revised the policy and amended it for students who got failed results but the court didn’t seem to be impressed by this. In response, the SC asked the board that earlier a policy like this wherein the student has to decide the better marks out of the two existed then what was the reason for this revision.
The Court quoted, “Give us a justification why is it not possible to accept the favourable marks of the candidate. In the past, you’ve done it. What’s the difficulty in doing it this year also?”
To this, the counsel argued that the improvement exam is the final exam and it is opted by those who are not satisfied with their results. If students are provided with the authority then there was no need of conducting this exam.
Addressing the plea, the court said that this newly introduced clause can bring more harm than good. Also, with this, a lot of students who get lesser marks in the improvement exam compared to the class 12th exam can face obstruction in getting admission to a good institution for higher studies. The court winded up today’s hearing by commenting that the students are already in the midst of misery due to the pandemic and with these kinds of policies and clauses, the situation will become more vulnerable for them.
