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The Supreme Court today dismissed an intervention application filed by Private and compartment students of CBSE seeking cancellation of Class XII private/compartment/ repeaters CBSE Board Exams.

The Vacation bench of Justice AM Khanwilkar and Justice Dinesh Maheshwari while dismissing the plea said that the Class XII compartment exams will be conducted between August 15- September 15, 2021

Adv Abhishek Choudhary for the petitioners submitted that “IIT Kanpur has said that the 3rd wave would appear in October. The private students do not have any bio bubble. The classification should be reasonable. Balance of interest will only be served if the results are declared of all the students on the same date.

Choudhary further argued that “the seats in universities are taken based on merits. Now what will happen is that the students for state board, CBSE & ICSE would take up the seats.”

The Court however said that the number of students who would appear for the improvement exams would be less than the students who appeared for private exams.

Attorney General KK Venugopal appearing for Centre submitted that the UGC would not allow Universities to open until the results of all exams would be decalred.

AG further said that he was told that these compartment students were given an opportunity to write the exam and now they were asking for the same this year too.

Adv Choudhary however clarified “there would be only one part of private students appearing for the exam. There are 3 categories of students: Private Compartment and Patrachar.”

The bench was hearing the plea drawn by Advocate(a) Abhishekh Chaudhary, Anubha Sahai, Prabhu Prasanna, Ritika Ritu, Abhishekh Pattnaik and Nabab Singh and filed through Advocate on Record Manju Jetley which also sought for directing CBSE to follow evaluation schemes, similar to that of Maharashtra, Jammu & Kashmir and Odisha, for the Private / Patrachar / 2nd chance Compartment candidates of CBSE Class XII examinations 2021, which would be in the greatest interest of the students at large belonging to these categories.

Appearing for the private/ compartment students, Advocate Abhishekh Choudhary yesterday had argued that the policy which was laid down by CBSE titled as Policy for Tabulation of Marks for Class XII Board Examinations, 2021 and Policy for Tabulation of Marks for Class X Board Exams 2021 based on Internal Assessments conducted by Schools in clause 29 and 31 respectively attempts to give unequal treatment to Private / Patrachar / 2nd chance Compartment candidates of Class X and XII created a classification which had no reasonableness, rational and hence was prima facie, unfair, unjust, arbitrary, and unreasonable and violative of the principles of equality enshrined under Article 14 of the Constitution of India.

The petitioners had averred that like regular students of CBSE, class XIIth private/patrachar/ 2nd chance compartment students were aspiring and equally hopeful of securing admissions in reputed colleges of the country and delaying their exams beyond a reasonable time till a conducive environment is reached would not only loose opportunity to apply and seek admission in these Universities / Colleges, but they will also be denied their fundamental right to education.

The petitioners thereafter had also sought for directing the board to arrive at a formula for evaluation of the performance Class Xth and XIIth private / compartment / repeaters students in line with the assessment formula adopted by CBSE and other Education Boards for the regular students and to release the results in a time bound manner. Along with this reliefs have been sought to direct the CBSE to allow Class X & XII private / compartment / repeaters students to file their objections within a reasonable period of time, in case they are not satisfied with the results so published and resolve their grievances/ objections by giving them fair and equal treatment with that of regular students.

It is pertinent to note, that in the additional affidavit filed yesterday by the CBSE, the board stated that, “The exams for these candidates would be conducted in a manner so that they fall within the Assessment Policy for the Academic Year 2019-2020 as approved by the top court in Amit Bathla & Ors v. CBSE & Anr and after conducting their exams anytime between August 15 to September 15, 2021 that their results would be declared in accordance with the Assessment Policy.”

Case Title: Mamta Sharma v. CBSE