SC dismisses pleas challenging the decision of the CBSE to reconduct Economics exam for class 12

The top court today dismissed five petitions that challenged the CBSE board’s decision to conduct a retest for the Economics examination for class 12 after an alleged leak of the paper.

The court stated that it is the discretion of the CBSE board and it cannot be challenged in the court.

A bench that comprised Justice L. Nageswara Rao and S.A. Bobde, asked the students who had challenged the decision of the CBSE to appear in the examination if at all it is conducted.

The CBSE stated it on Tuesday that after conducting an assessment, there was no impact of the alleged leak of the Math paper of class 10 and no retest would be done.

Petitioners seek CBI probe

Aside of challenging the decision of the CBSE, the petitioners wanted a CBI probe into the alleged leak of the papers, stating that a number of incidents were reported from different states and the Delhi police were not capable of conducting a probe on a national basis.

15-year-old Rohan Mathew, one of the petitioners, sought a direction to the CBSE for declaring the results based on the examinations that have been already conducted.

It was on 30 March that the CBSE had declared that it would conduct a reexamination for the Economics exam for class 12 across the country on 25 April.

Another plea was filed by Reepak Kansal who is a resident of New Delhi who challenged the decision of the CBSE to cancel and conduct the two papers again.

The plea said, “It is to be noted that this year, 16,38,428 students are appearing for the class 10 and 11,86,306 students for class 12 in the CBSE examinations. And therefore, to penalise the student community for an incident which is under investigation and without completion of that investigation/enquiry and issuing a notice on March 28, 2018 (for re-exams), affects the fundamental rights of students which is arbitrary, illegal and unconstitutional”.