The Supreme Court on Thursday accepted in principle the formulas suggested by the CBSE and the ISC board to award marks to this year’s outgoing Class XII students, but decided to delay final approval till it had heard the students’ views on Monday.
Largely, the marks would be awarded on the basis of the students’ performances in their Class X boards and their school Class XI and XII exams, normalised on the basis of their school’s performance in Class XII boards over the past three (CBSE) or six (ISC) years.
Attorney-general K.K. Venugopal placed the methodology for the CBSE, and advocate J.K. Das did so for the CISCE — the board that conducts the ICSE (Class X) and ISC (Class XII) exams — before the bench of Justices A.M. Khanwilkar and Dinesh Maheshwari.
The matter was posted to Monday for final approval after senior advocate Vikas Singh, appearing for some students, sought permission to place the student community’s views on the criteria adopted by the boards.
The CBSE said it would declare the final results by July 31, while the CISCE said it would declare the results by July 20. Both the boards’ Class XII exams have been cancelled because of the pandemic.
Any student who fails to meet the qualifying criterion (to pass) will be placed in the “essential repeat” or “compartment category” and can appear in a physical exam, to be held whenever the situation is conducive.
The court said there should be a dispute resolution mechanism if some aggrieved students seek rectification of their declared results.
Students who are still dissatisfied with the marks awarded to them will be allowed to take the physical exam, whenever held, to improve their scores.
The court was dealing with a public interest plea that Mamta Sharma, an advocate, had moved seeking cancellation of this year’s Class XII exams by the two all-India boards in the light of the pandemic.
The bench said a plea for the cancellation of state boards’ Class XII exams in Assam, Punjab, Tripura, Kerala and Andhra Pradesh would be taken up on Monday. Kerala has conducted a part of the Class XII board exams but not completed it.
The rest of the states have either cancelled their Class XII board exams or already conducted them, the court was told.
