Justice C. Hari Shankar of the Delhi High Court today recused himself from hearing the application seeking an interim direction to all schools affiliated to the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) to upload in the public domain the rationale document for devised criteria for the assessment of students of Class X.
The matter was listed before the Vacation Bench comprising Justice C. Hari Shankar and Justice Subramonium Prasad. Justice Hari Shankar said he cannot hear the matter and directed it to be listed on June 30, 2021 before a Bench of which he is not a member.
The interim application has been moved in the plea filed by Justice for All, an organization of lawyers and social activists dedicated to the cause of common man and particularly to the rights of the children relating to education and health, through Advocates Shikha Sharma and Khargesh B. Jha. The court was of the opinion that the issues raised in the plea are substantial enough and requires the adjudication, and thereby, issued notice to the respondents.
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It is averred that the Board has not yet modified its arbitrary policy of moderation of marks for Class X students based on previous performance, which is in violation of Article 21 of the Constitution. It is further averred that the present system of evaluation lacks transparency as the students have no option to know what the base of their evaluation was. In light of the above, the petitioner organisation seeks interim relief in the form of direction to the schools affiliated to the Board to publish the rationale document for devised criteria for the assessment of students of Class X on their respective websites, before calculating the result and uploading the same on the CBSE portal. It further prays for a grievance redressal mechanism by the Board wherein students could raise their grievances.