Justice Hari Shankar Recuses From Hearing Plea For Modifying CBSE's Evaluation Scheme For Class X Students

Justice C Hari Shankar today recused himself from hearing a plea in the Delhi High Court seeking modification of the Central Board of Secondary Education's (CBSE) scheme for evaluation of Grade X students.

The plea was listed for hearing before the vacation division bench of Justices Hari Shankar and Subramonium Prasad.

The court had earlier issued notice in the petition which seeks modification of policy for tabulation of marks for class X Board Examination, 2021 based on internal assessment conducted by the school dated 1st May 2021.

The petition moved by NGO Justice For All and moved through Advocates Khagesh B Jha and Shikha Sharma Bagga also seeks directions to all the schools affiliated by CBSE to publish the rationale document for assessment of students of class Xth on their respective websites, before calculating the result and uploading the same on the CBSE portal, to bring transparency to ensure that the students may access it and could raise their grievances with the board well in time.

A division bench comprising of Chief Justice DN Patel and Justice Jyoti Singh issued notice and sought response of the CBSE, GNCTD and Union of India through MHRD.

The petition states that CBSE failed to ensure the protection of fundamental right to the students appearing in class 10th Board examination in the year 2020-21, under provisions of Articles 19(1)(a), 21 and 21A of constitution of India, thereby seeking the modification in impugned policy for tabulation of marks for class X board exams 2021 based on internal assessment conducted by the school.

On the aspect of moderation of marks, the plea avers thus:

"The policy of moderating the average marks assessed by the school, based on the historical performance of the previous average result of the school, in terms of the best overall performance of the school would be injustice to the students as the performance of school not relatable in any manner with the performance of the student."

The plea also states that such moderation of marks in consonance with the overall average score of the district, national and state average is "absolutely unreasonable, illogical and punitive for the students of the school which has been appearing in the board exams for the first time, having no historical data of previous year's performance."

The plea prays for the records to be verified by the team deputed by the CBSE in case of any grievance of the aggrieved parent or the student, for unfair marks awarded by the committee.

"The Board's policy of punishing the students for the unfair and biasness practice of the school, by not declaring the result is arbitrary and the same need to be revisited with some amicable solution so that the students of the school should not suffer for no fault of theirs," the plea alleges.