PULKIT PANDEY Vs. CENTRAL BOARD OF SECONDARY EDUCATION

JUDGEMENT

(1.) ALL the petitioners herein are the examines of Class-X Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE for short) who have moved this Court by filing these writ petitions for challenging the action of the CBSE which has withheld their results on the ground that the students/petitioners herein had not passed out the qualifying examination before entering into Class-X due to which they were ineligible to appear in the Class- X Board examination. As per the CBSE Regulation, students are eligible to seek admission in Class-X only if they have passed out Class-IX after which alone they could appear in the Board examination conducted by the CBSE.

(2.) IT appears that the petitioners had been studying in different schools in Class-IX and as per school record they were declared fail since they had not secured the required percentage of marks which would have held them eligible to seek admission in Class-X.

(3.) IN this scenario, the question cropped up whether it was permissible for the CBSE to raise a dispute questioning the petitioners to sit in the Class-X Board examination after they had completed the session and also appeared in the Board's examination and the Board had also accepted their fee and from which it could be reasonably inferred that their eligibility had been checked by the Board. Learned counsel for the CBSE sought to justify the action of the CBSE on the plea that the CBSE is not equipped with any system or mechanism by which this kind of illegal activity on the part of the schools and the students could be checked within a reasonable time and whenever any activity of this nature is brought to the notice of the Board, suitable action is taken which includes with-holding of results also. But on perusal of the annexures to this writ petition which were referred by the counsel for the parties, it appears that there had been a regular correspondence between the School as also the CBSE in this regard and the CBSE had issued a letter to the school in the mid of the session that although some of the students named therein were eligible to appear, others who were also named therein were not; but what transpired between the Board and the school thereafter is not clear as also as to what action was taken against the schools and the affected students/petitioners before they were permitted to appear in the examination of Class-X. It is hardly convincing and hard to accept the contention that the Board is not equipped with any agency through which this kind of check can of conducted within a reasonable time as in my view if the Board had been really sincere about its action, it was expected to check the credentials of the school and the students even before the admissions were granted to the petitioners/students or atleast before accepting their fees and forms and issuance of their admit cards since the Board had entered into a correspondence with the school in this regard prior to permitting the students to appear, by accepting their fee and examination forms. This action appears to have been done only after they were permitted to appear in the entire examination but with-held their results so as to give them a shock treatment instead of taking timely action. Nevertheless, this Court found substance in the contention of learned counsel for the CBSE Mr. R. P. Singh, who submitted that if a particular illegal action of an institution or a person who indulges in mal- practice, dupes the school authorities and the CBSE checks it at a later stage, then whether such action is not fit to be dealt with a stringent action so as to allow it to reach to a logical conclusion.