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The Supreme Court today has directed the State of Andhra Pradesh to take a final decision with regards to conducting the state board exams for Class 12th. 

Vacation bench of Justice Dinesh Maheshwari and Justice Vineet Saran while directing the Counsel to file an affidavit with regards to its decision observed, “Do not keep the students under any uncertainty. Mr Nazki, file an affidavit saying that you are going to conduct the exam.”

Case will now be heard on June 24.

Appearing for the State of Andhra Pradesh, Adv Nazki argued that the State was willing to go ahead with conducting the exam. It was also his submission that, “As of now, we feel we'll be able to conduct the exam. We have deferred the decision till July.In every exam hall, there would only be 15 students”

Appearing for intervenors in the IA filed by parents of some class XIth students from the State of Kerala seeking directions to cancel class XIth Exam to be conducted from September 6 to September 16 in the wake of surge in Covid, Adv Prashant Padmanabhan submitted that the State of Kerala was still going ahead to conduct class 11th exam. 

On the last date, bench of Justice AM Khanwilkar and Justice Dinesh Maheshwari had directed the counsel for Kerala to seek instructions in relation to an intervention application filed by parents of some class XIth students from the seeking directions to cancel class XIth Exam to be conducted from September 6 to September 16 in the wake of surge in Covid said, 

Counsels appearing for the State of Tripura, Assam yesterday had informed the Court about its decision to cancel the State Board Exams. 

Advocate on Record Shashidhar appearing for the petitioners had also submitted that even Punjab had decided to cancel the exam but Andhra Pradesh until now had not decided to cancel the exam. 

Appearing for the State of Andhra Pradesh, Senior Advocate Nazki submitted that the State intended to conduct the state board exams physically. 

Earlier, the Court while taking note of the fact that out of 28 states, 6 states have conducted the exam, 18 states have cancelled the exam and 4 states earlier had directed the petitioner’s counsel to serve the copy to the states who were yet to cancel the state board exams. 

The plea was filed through child rights activists, Advocate Anubha Shrivastava Sahai. It also sought for the constitution of a committee to decide the formula of assessment of students including compartment students and declare the result  within a time limit. 

Advocate Sahai in her plea had averred that due to the pandemic situation some of the State Government’s took decision for cancellation of the Higher Secondary Certificate Examination (“HSC Exam”) which were scheduled formerly for March but in some State Governments have still not taken any decision regarding cancellation of the said exam.

She further contended that HSC Board has still not devised any formula regarding how they are going to assess the students of Class XII for their further admission for professional as well as non professional courses, in the event of cancellation of the exam.

It was also contented by Advocate Sahai that admitting the severe situation of covid 19 and in view of the judgement of the Top Court in the matter of Amit Bathla & Anr. V. CBSE & Ors. (2020) 7 SCC 233, the CICSE/CBSE has partly accepted the judgment of this Hon'ble Court for present academic session of 2020-2021 in respect of class X students by way of issuing the directions not to conduct their· fresh final examination. 

The matter would now come up for further hearing after two days.

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