COVID- "Show More Sympathy While Dealing With Students": Madras High Court To Education Authorities

The Bench of Justice N. Anand Venkatesh further remarked that :

"There is already a surge in the number of cases before the Psychiatrists to whom children are taken for counselling during this pandemic period. The children are facing a new problem and their energy is getting dissipated by confining them inside the house."

Also, stressing that this has been going on for more than one year, the Bench pointed it out that society needs to attend to this problem by being more kind with the children and not adding more pressure on them.

The matter before the Court

The son of the petitioner before the Court submitted that the Directorate of Government Examinations communicated to him that his son was not entitled to be declared as 'pass' on the ground that the son does not satisfy the attendance criteria.

It was submitted that the petitioner's son was in the 10th standard during the academic year 2019-20 and due to the Pandemic situation, the Government took a policy decision to declare as "passed" all the 10th standard students.

However, according to the petitioner, the School of his son, while submitting the list of candidates, left out the name of his son and as a result of the same, he did not get the advantage of the policy decision of the Government.

Observations of the Court

The Court observed that the children studying in Schools are facing a new challenge, wherein, they have been asked to attend the classes, which are conducted online.

The Court noted that when it came to conducting the examinations for classes IX, X, and X1, the Government found that it was impossible to conduct the examinations therefore, a policy decision was taken to declare as 'pass' all those students, who were in the 9th, 10th and 11th standards.

In this backdrop, the Court referred to the Government Order dated 25.02.2021 and stressed that it does not stipulate that the benefit will accrue to a student only if he/she fulfils the attendance requirement.

"It is not known from where the second respondent (The Directorate of Government Examinations) gathered such a requirement in the Government order… (it) cannot add something to the Government order, when it is not available in the Government order," observed the Court.

Therefore, the Court ruled that the ground raised by the second respondent (The Directorate of Government Examinations) for rejecting the request made by the petitioner was unsustainable.

In view of the above discussion, the Court quashed the letter and order of the second respondent (The Directorate of Government Examinations) and directed the second respondent to declare the son of the petitioner, to have passed the 10th standard examination for the academic year 2020-2021.

This process has been directed to be completed within two weeks.

Case title - D. Suresh Kumar v. The Director, The Directorate of School Education and others

Click Here To Download Order

Read Order