The Supreme Court on Friday struck down a clause of the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) policy which held that the marks of a candidate in the improvement examination for Class 12 exams will be considered final.
The Bench of Justices A.M. Khanwilkar and C.T. Ravikumar directed the CBSE to provide the option to the candidate to choose the better of the two marks for the final declaration of results.
The court said that the CBSE has not given any reason as to why such a policy was adopted. The bench observed that CBSE’s policy of improvement examination marks to be the final marks for Class 12 exams is in the departure of the earlier scheme where the better marks were considered in results.
The Supreme Court held that the candidate should be given an option to choose between the marks obtained in any of the examinations, the actual main examination and the improvement examination thereafter.
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Additional Solicitor General Aishwarya Bhati responded that it was a call CBSE took, but accepted that there is no need to take a rigid stance on this. She conceded that the court may pass an order.
Clause 28 of CBSE policy states, for Class 12, even if the marks obtained in the original exam were more than in the improvement exams, the improvement exam marks will be considered as final.
Now, the students would get the option to choose marks from the two scores. The CBSE earlier told the Supreme Court that it has duly followed the assessment scheme in evaluating marks of Class 12 students whose exams were cancelled due to the Covid-19 pandemic.