Madras HC Dismisses Pleas Against State's Assessment Mechanism For Passing Class X Students Amid COVID-19 [Read Order]

"The Government has thought it fit to adopt a particular method of awarding marks to the students in the 10^th standard Public Examination. While adopting any method, the Government has to take into consideration the overall interest of the students. It may be possible that some of the students are not happy with the method suggested by the Government or it is also possible that there are some alternative or effective methods available to award marks to the students. That by itself cannot be a ground for this Court to interfere with the decision taken by the Government," the Single Bench of Justice N. Anand Venkatesh held.

The Court was hearing pleas filed by class X students of the academic year 2019-20. Hough they had not challenged the Government's decision to pass all the students, they were aggrieved by the evaluation mechanism, whereby 80% weightage was given to marks secured by the students in the Quarterly and Half-yearly examinations and 20% to students' attendance.

They had argued that during the academic year 2019-20, there was a change in the syllabus and both the teaching staff and the students became more acquainted with the new syllabus only after the Half-yearly examination. Thus it was submitted that award of notional final marks in the SSLC Public Examination should be calculated in the following manner:

70% on the basis of the marks secured by the students in the "last and final revision test" or any examination conducted by the Schools prior to March 2020; and the remaining 30% must be on the basis of the attendance during the academic year 2019-20.

Refusing to "poke its nose in a policy matter", the Court said that in exercise of its jurisdiction under Article 226 of the Constitution, it can interfere into the policy decision of the Government only when it suffers from "arbitrariness, irrationality, bias and malice."

It observed,

"These are areas which should be safely left within the domain of governance and the Courts must be very slow to interfere with such decisions. If the Court is satisfied that the decision taken by the Government is not arbitrary, irrational or is not actuated by bias or malice, this Court should not poke it's nose to a policy decision taken by the Government. In the considered view of this Court, the method adopted by the Government does not fall within any of these categories. Therefore, this Court is not inclined to interfere with the Government Order."

The Special Govt Pleader had argued that the Petitioners were "too late" in approaching the Court by questioning the Government Order. It was pointed out that the Government Order had been acted upon and the marks had been awarded to all the students and 11^th standard admissions were also in progress.

Case Details:

Case Title: Minor T. & Ors. v. State of TN & Ors.

Case No.: WP No. 11081/2020 (and other similar petitions)

Quorum: Justice N. Anand Venkatesh

Appearance: Senior Advocate TP Manoharan assisted by Advocate TM Naveen (for Petitioners); Special Govt Pleaders C. Munusamy and .Syed Mustafa and Govt Advocate V. Annalakshmi

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