Calcutta High Court Grants Relief To 76 Class X Students Admitted To De-Affiliated School, Allows Them To Write ICSE Board Exams

The Calcutta High Court has directed the Council for the Indian School Certificate Examinations (CISCE) to allow 76 Class X students of St Augustine’s Day School Calcutta to write their 2024 ICSE Class 10 board examination from any other Council affiliated-school.

On an earlier occasion, single-bench of Justice Biswajit Basu had taken serious exception to the school’s actions of enrolling students in class 9 and 10, whilst misrepresenting its status as a Council-affiliated school, leading to the students not being registered for the 2024 board exams.

The respondent no. 1, due to the failure of the school to comply with the directions regarding development of the infrastructure and other incidental matters of the school, has withdrawn the affiliation of it, as a consequence thereof, the registration of the said students with the Board has not yet been done causing an uncertainty for the said students to appear in the Board examination, the Court noted.

The Court had appointed DSG Billwadal Bhattacharya as special officer, to peruse the records of the school and determine the number of bona fide students who would be eligible to write their board examinations in 2024.

Upon going through the special officer’s report, the Court allowed 76 class X students to appear for the 2024 board exams, from other affiliated schools, while directing that the cost of registration to be borne by St Augustine’s school.

The wards of the petitioners are the bona fide students of Class X of the aforementioned school and they would take up the Board Examination in the year 2024. The students cannot be made to suffer for the fault of the school authority. The particulars of the said students have been disclosed in a chart appearing at page 41 of the writ petition being Annexure ‘P-1’. The respondent no.1 is directed to take steps for registration of the said students enabling them to appear in the Board Examinations for the year 2024, the costs of such registration shall be borne by the school authority, it was held.

Case: Swarup Poddar And Ors Vs Council For The Indian School Certificate Examination And Ors

Case No: WPA 22094/2023

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