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Synopsis

The Supreme Court on April 8, 2024 castigated the Karnataka government for conducting board examinations for classes 5, 8, 9 and 11 and creating havoc and playing with the future of the students and causing mental agony and hardships to them and their parents.

"It appears that the State is anyhow bent upon playing with the future of the students and cause mental agony and physical hardships to the students, their parents, their teachers, as also to the School Managements," a bench of Justices Bela M Trivedi and Pankaj Mithal said.

Court has accordingly stayed the Karnataka High Court's division bench order of March 22, allowing assessment for classes 5 th, 8th and 9th and to resume the process, which was stalled for 11th standard. 

"The order of the division bench also prima facie does not appear to be in consonance with the provisions contained in the RTE Act and with the settled tenets of interpretation of statutes," the bench said.

Court has also pulled up the Karnataka School Quality Assessment and Accreditation Council for issuing an order on Saturday, April 6 for declaration of results before 9 AM on April 8, the date of hearing before this court.

"The manner in which the order dated 06.04.2024 has been passed, it smacks of the ill-intention on the part of the respondent – State to see to it that the impugned order of the High Court may not be challenged by the petitioners and if challenged, the petitions may become infructuous," it said.

A special leave petition was filed by Organisation for Unaided Recognised Schools & Reg (Our Schools) in the issue. The petitioner contended despite this court's March 12 observation that there were important issues pertaining to the Education Policy of the State, the division bench did not grant it any time to approach this court to challenge the impugned order. 

The State Government also speedily proceeded with the Board exams in extremely hurried manner and directed to schedule the exams on 25th, 26th, 27th and 28th of March, 2024 for the students of Classes 5th, 8th and 9th, when the 10th Board exams were also scheduled, causing tremendous hardships to the students, their parents and the teachers, it said.

The order also stated, under no circumstance, should there be a delay in publishing the results and the Deputy Director (Administration) and Block Education Officer shall ensure that the results shall be published in all the Schools by the Head Masters/Principals and shall inform the Board accordingly, the petitioner pointed out.

Court was further told though the teachers had raised objections against evaluation of 1.66 crores answer sheets of Classes 5th, 8th and 9th Board exams in the shortest possible time and though the schools had complained of errors in the evaluation of the Board exams answer sheets of the said classes, the order on April 6 came to be issued making it compulsory for the School Managements to publish the evaluation results for the said classes, before 9.00 A.M. on April 08, 2024.

Case Title: Organisation for Unaided Recognised Schools & Rgd (Our Schools) vs. State of Karnataka & Ors