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The Supreme Court on Wednesday dismissed a Public Interest Litigation seeking an alternate mode of assessment of students from Class X, XI, and XII of CBSE, ICSE, NIOS, and State Boards instead of an offline exam.

 A bench of Justice AM Khanwilkar and Justice Dinesh Maheshwari and Justice CT Ravikumar said that " Let the authorities and students do their job, these kinds of petitions mislead the students, give false hope."

The petition has been filed by Anubha Shrivastava Sahai a child rights activist and Student Union of Odisha after several students from different boards approached the petitioners raising the said grievance. 

The plea states that "In most of the States during the lockdown period of June - December 2020 no classes were provided to Students. Almost 98% of colleges/schools of all the States had not conducted any online class for Students in that period."

The bench noted that the authorities also know what they are doing, In addition to this Justice Maheshwari said, "we cannot entertain a petition because a similar petition was entertained last year due to certain situation."

The bench also indicated that they will impose a cost while dismissing the petition, however, deferred for doing the same, Justice Khanwilkar added, "We are not going to pass any orders, this gives false hope to students, Authorities also know what they are doing."

Earlier, on Tuesday the bench had agreed to list the plea today seeking an alternate mode of assessment of students from Class X, XI, and XII of CBSE, ICSE, NIOS, and State Boards instead of an offline exam.

The plea had alleged that looking into the matter most of the State Government & Education department has declared for 100 days offline class for students and will conduct exams after100 days offline classes.

The plea adds that "the government said the students have to bring “No Objection Certificate” signed by parents to join offline classes. But most of the parents were unable to allow their child for offline classes in the pandemic. Also, it is said that it is not compulsory for all students to join offline classes.

The petitioners have also asserted that "in addition to this, family members of several students were in hospitals during the period, lost their family members, faced other difficulties, all this has impacted the studies of many students and especially of those who could not afford tuition."

"Some states have declared the timetable for the final exam in offline mode in subjective form some have still not declared and in 5 states due to elections they haven’t decided anything," the plea further adds. 

It is in this regard the petitioners have sought an alternate mode of assessment of students from Class X XI XII of CBSE, ICSE, NIOS and State Boards instead of offline exam and to conduct an improvement exam for those who are 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.

Case Title: Anubha Shrivastava Sahai and Anr Vs. Union of India & Ors.