Gauhati High Court Imposes Rs 10,000 Cost On Man For Filing Petition To Challenge Evaluation Of Marks In Daughter’s HSLC Exam After Failure

The Gauhati High Court recently dismissed with a cost of Rs. 10,000 a writ petition filed by the father of a girl who failed HSLC examination. He had alleged that the evaluation of the marks for his daughter was not in accordance with the guidelines,

The single judge bench of Justice Sanjay Kumar Medhi observed that writ petition lacked genuine cause of action as there was no infringement of any fundamental or legal rights of the petitioner.

“It is unfortunate to notice that a trend has been set to file applications under Article 226 of the Constitution of India at the drop of a hat. Numerous cases have been seen to be filed with imaginary or very trivial causes of action. This Court is of the opinion that such trend has to be nipped in the bud and filing of writ petitions of the present nature has to be discouraged,” said the court.

The petitioner’s daughter was found eligible and issued admit card to appear in the HSLC examination scheduled for the year 2021. Though the HSLC examination was scheduled to commence from May 11, 2021, due to the peculiar situation of Covid-19 pandemic, the examinations were initially postponed and eventually cancelled with a decision to declare the results based on the marking or evaluation in the previous examination of Class-IX and certain other criteria.

Accordingly, a set of guidelines were issued for such evaluation. When the results of the HSLC examination, 2021 was declared on July 30, 2021, the petitioner’s daughter was shown to have failed. The petitioner alleged that the evaluation of the marks for his daughter was not in accordance with the guidelines and hence, he filed the present writ petition.

The Counsel appearing for the petitioner referred to the part of the guidelines laying down the formula and procedures for awarding marks against the theory portion of each subject which are as follows:

1. 40% weightage on marks secured by the student in the theory portion of each subjects in the Annual Examination of Class-IX, of the year in which he/she has appeared and promoted to Class-X.
2. 40% weightage on marks secured by the student in the theory portion of each subject in the Pre-Board Examination.
3. 20% weightage on marks secured by the student in the theory portion of each subject in the Unit Test.

It was submitted that proper assessment has not been done as per the guidelines and therefore grave prejudice has been caused to the petitioner.

The Standing Counsel appearing for the Department of Secondary Education, Assam submitted that projection made by the petitioner is incorrect, both factually as well as legally. It was further submitted that the assessment done in all the papers would show that the same has been done strictly according to the guidelines and in fact by use of discretion, the highest possible marks have been allotted to the petitioner’s daughter. He argued that the primary ground of violation of the guidelines has not been at all substantiated and therefore the present case is liable to be dismissed.

The Counsel appearing for the concerned School submitted that assessment was done by a duly constituted Committee and the projection made by the petitioner is wholly unsubstantiated.

The court said in view of such poor performance in the earlier examination, whether at all this writ petition should be entertained and the allegation of error in assessment be gone into is itself become questionable.”

Dismissing the writ petition for being misconceived and abuse of the process, the court said:

“…….the instant writ petition, apart from lacking any genuine cause of action by demonstrating infringement of any fundamental or legal rights, or for the enforcement thereof, the background facts would reveal that there is no cause of action at all which requires any adjudication, that too by this Court exercising extraordinary powers under Article 226 of the Constitution of India,” the Court said.

Thus, the Court imposed a cost of Rs. 10,000/- upon the petitioner to be deposited in favour of the Lawyers Benevolent Fund, Gauhati High Court Bar Association.

Case Title: HUD v. The State of Assam & 9 Ors.

Click Here to Read/Download Judgment