RAHUL TEWARI Vs. UNION OF INDIA & ORS

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The present writ petition deals with a situation where a student of class XI was promoted to class XII in violation of the rules governing the Council for The Indian School Certificate Examinations (hereinafter referred to as 'ISC Rules'). The ISC Rules clearly specify that every student has to pass in English and three more subjects in class XI to be promoted to class XII. Unfortunately, the petitioner herein did not pass in three subjects but was wrongly promoted by the school authorities. The petitioner submits that the petitioner continued to study in class XII and only came to know of his predicament in the month of August/September, 2018 when the Indian School Certificate Examination Board (hereinafter referred to as 'the Board') refused to register his name for the class XII Board Examinations. The present writ petition was filed on December 6, 2018, wherein the writ petitioner is seeking a prayer for a Writ of Mandamus to be issued on the Board to allow him to take the class XII examinations.

(2.) Counsel appearing on behalf of the school authority concedes that inadvertently the student was promoted to class XII and on coming to know of such an error in the month of August they had orally intimated the same to the petitioner. However, the counsel admits that the information sent by the Board was not communicated to the petitioner in writing and, therefore, the petitioner did not know the reasons for not being able to register with the Board.

(3.) Mr. Baid, counsel appearing on behalf of the Board, relies on the judgments of the Supreme Court in Council For Indian School Certificate Examination v- Isha Mittal and Another reported in, 2000 7 SCC 521 [Coram: S.P. Bharucha, Ruma Pal and Shivaraj V. Patil, JJ.],Regional Officer, CBSE v- Ku. Sheena Peethambaran and Others reported in, 2003 7 SCC 719[Coram: Brijesh Kumar and Arun Kumar, JJ.], Mahatma Gandhi University and Another v- GIS Jose and Others reported in, 2008 17 SCC 611 [Coram: Ashok Bhan and V.S. Sirpurkar, JJ.] and the Orissa High Court judgment in Saurav Maharana v- Council for the Indian School Certificate Examinations and Ors. reported in, 2007 2 OrissaLR 595 [Coram: P.K. Tripathy and R.N. Biswal, JJ.] to buttress his submissions that the ISC Rules are sacrosanct and there is no scope whatsoever for the courts to interfere. He submits that the Supreme Court has time and again reiterated that mercy and sympathy cannot overrule the ISC Rules established by the Board as the same are promulgated to maintain academic standards. He further submitted that allowing even one child to appear in the examination dehors the ISC Rules would open the floodgates resulting in collapse of the entire system governed by the Board.