The Supreme Court will hear a plea on Wednesday, 23 February, seeking urgent listing of a petition demanding the cancellation of physical exams for Classes 10 and 12, scheduled to be conducted by all the state boards, the CBSE, ICSE, and NIOS.
The petition will be heard by a bench headed by Justice AM Khanwilkar that had overseen the conduct of exams based on the CBSE's 30:30:40 alternative evaluation criteria for exams last year.
The plea, filed through advocate Prashant Padmanabhan, said many students under the CBSE, ICSE, NIOS, and state boards had approached the petitioner, Anubha Shrivastava Sahai, for issues they were facing regarding the board exams. It said they were directly affected by the outcome of this PIL.
Suicides Over Fear of Failing Exams
"The other petitioners are students as well as the parents from different states, who were aggrieved by the Boards' decision. That, the mental pressure that is created for performance in this exam is so much that every year a number of students commit suicide for fear of underperformance, or of failure," said the plea.
Padmanabhan mentioned the matter on Tuesday for urgent listing before the bench headed by Justice Khanwilkar. The bench directed that an advanced copy of the petition be served on the CBSE.
The plea added, "To make the students appear and face examination with the additional fear of getting infected by the COVID-19 virus will not only be unfair but the same will be absolutely inhuman."
The petitioners contended that their claim was genuine and it was essential to protect their fundamental rights of education under Articles 14 and 21 of the Constitution.
The plea urged the top court to issue directions to the authorities concerned to pass a notification regarding the alternate mode of assessment of students from Class 10, 11, and 12 of the CBSE, ICSE, NIOS, and state boards, instead of offline exams.
It also appealed to the court to pass a direction to conduct an improvement exam for those who were not satisfied with internal assessment and further direction to constitute a committee to decide the formula of assessment of students, including compartment students, and declare the result within a time limit and deadline.
The second petitioner in the plea is the Student Union of Odisha. The plea has also included a list of students from various parts of the country who had approached Sahai regarding issues with the board exams.
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