[BREAKING] In Sunday Hearing, SC Dismisses Plea Against Conduct Of Board Exams In Rajasthan

The Supreme Court in a special Sunday hearing dismissed a plea challenging the High Court of Rajasthan's decision of upholding conduct of board examinations for class X and Class XII in the state.

A bench comprising Justices AM Khanwilkar, Dinesh Maheshwari & Sanjiv Khanna observed that it did not consider it appropriate to intervene in the said plea in light of the recent judgement in "Rajashree v. Karnataka", wherein Justice LN Rao had stated that the Courts should have minimum interference in academic issues and that it had already dealt with similar pleas earlier.

Court stated that,

"....the petitioners had filed this at the last moment, while the state government had already taken all necessary precautionary measures. Exams set to start from tomorrow, and petitioners have not pointed out any major inconvenience. Hence we do not wish to intervene"

A parent of the aggrieved student has moved the Top Court in special leave petition filed through Advocate Ronak Karanpuria states that the decision of the state board of conducting the Secondary examination of the remaining two papers be conducted on June 29 & 30 is "erroneous" and deserves to be set aside, considering the ongoing pandemic situation.

The plea states that the decision to conduct the remaining examinations during the midst of covid19 is arbitrary and in violation of Article 14 of the Constitution.

The petitioner had also cited the recent decision of the Supreme Court which led to the scrapping of Class 10 and 12 board examinations for the safety of students.

Further to this, the plea stated that about 120 schools which are designated examination centres were used to quarantine people for shelter labourers in transit and that the "conducting of examinations is wrong illegal and discriminatory for the reason that it jeopardises the health of the students undertaking the exams and thus, amounting to violation of Article 21 and 14 of the constitution."

The plea stated that,

"The high court failed to appreciate that the Respondent No. 4 has not given any solution to the practical problems such as the movements of the students residing in the containment zones and the unavailability of private vehicles for all students, thereby restricting the movement"

Advocate Rishi Kapoor and Ronak Karanpuria appeared for the Petitioners and Senior Advocate Manish Singhvi and Advocate DK Devesh appeared for the Respondents.

Just 3 days ago, The Central Board of Secondary Education decided to cancel the exams of Class 10 and 12 scheduled from July 1 to 15 in the wake of COVID-19 pandemic and the Supreme Court accepted its alternative assessment scheme.

Earlier, Supreme Court had passed similar orders for Karnataka state board exams.