High Court Quashes Govt Order Appointing Karnataka School Examination & Assessment Board To Hold Annual School Exams

The Karnataka High Court has quashed the notifications issued by the State Government appointing the KSEAB (Karnataka School Examination & Assessment Board) as the competent authority to conduct the Summative Assessment-2 exams for students of classes 5th, 8th, and 9th and the annual examination for class 11th, studying in government, aided and unaided schools and colleges, following the Karnataka State Board Syllabus.

The examination was to commence from March 9.

A single judge bench of Justice Ravi V Hosmani said “When Government intends to bring changes to examination system affecting such large number of students, it would be desirable as well as mandatory to follow democratic procedure stipulated. And in case of failure, there need be no further justification to set such faulty measures at naught, regardless of merit policy and object behind such measures.”

Further the bench held “The respondents have not made any effort to justify impugned Notifications as compliant with requirement of Section 145 (4) of Education Act, they would have to be held as unsustainable.”

It added that even though the impugned notifications were Gazetted, they had not been issued after following the procedure contemplated in Section 145 (4) of the Education Act, and hence, impugned Notifications were liable to be quashed in entirety.

Advocate KV Dhananjay appeared for the petitioners Registered Unaided Private Schools Management Association Karnataka and another had argued that the impugned Notifications are violative of the following provisions of the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009.

Further, it was said that Section 22(2) of the Karnataka Education Act contemplates framing of Rules and not issuance of a notification, and therefore the impugned notifications are bad in law.

It was submitted that although the examination in question is termed as a 'summative assessment', it has all the trappings of a board examination, akin to those conducted by the CBSE or ICSE for students of 10th standard, and therefore the same was contrary to RTE Act.

The state government had opposed the plea saying that merely because Section 16 expressly mandates that a regular examination shall be conducted for students of (Classes 5th and 8th), it cannot be contended that the said provision acts as a bar against conducting an assessment by an external board.

Further, it was stated that the interpretation of Section 30 of the RTE Act by the Petitioners is erroneous since the provision in no way imposes a bar against requiring an elementary school student to merely undertake an assessment conducted by KSEAB, particularly when no student shall be held back or detained based on the result of such assessment.

It was also claimed that it is the prerogative of the Respondents to determine whether, and at what stage, framing of rules as contemplated under Section 22(2) of the Education Act would be necessary.

Defending the exams the government said that they were to be viewed as being preparatory in nature, modeled to equip students to confront the challenges of the board examinations in classes 10th and 12th.

It was stated that such a scheme of assessment was necessitated in order to bring about uniformity in the standards of the assessment and would also serve as an effective means to identify the areas/subjects in which students require additional attention.

Moreover, it was argued that the scheme assessment had been modeled in such a way that the scores in the SA-2 component would not have any significant implications on the scores of students, and would have no bearing on the students' prospects of promotion of students.

The court noted that admittedly, prior to such notifications, students of Classes 5, 8, 9, and 11 had not been subjected to Board Examinations.

Allowing the petitions it said, “Object, howsoever laudable, cannot cure procedural defects suffered by impugned Notifications.”

Appearance: Advocate K V Dhananjay KV a/w Advocates Sudharsan & Anirudh Kulkarni for Petitioners.

AAG VIKRAM HUILGOL, A/W AGA .MAMATHA SHETTY, FOR R1 TO R

Citation No: 2024 LiveLaw (Kar) 114

Case Title: Registered Unaided Private Schools Management Association & Another AND State of Karnataka & Ors

Case No: WP 26489/2023

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