The Supreme Court on Monday agreed to list for hearing a plea seeking cancellation of offline physical board examinations for classes 10 and 12 to be held by CBSE and other several boards this year.
An activist Anubha Shrivastava Sahai has sought directions to CBSE and other education boards which have proposed to hold board examinations offline for classes 10 and 12, the lawyer said.
The plea filed by the class 10 and 12 students of over 15 states sought an alternative assessment method for the upcoming board exams.
The Chief Justice of India NV Ramana accepted the request made for the urgent listing of the writ petition, saying, “the matter will now be heard before the bench of Justice AM Khanwilkar.”
A bench of Chief Justice N V Ramana and Justices A S Bopanna and Hima Kohli took note of the submissions of a lawyer seeking early listing of the plea saying that the physical examination should not be conducted due to the COVID-19 pandemic situation.
“This is regarding class 10 and 12 Board examinations. Physical examination should not be held due to the pandemic,” said lawyer Prashant Padmanabhan before the bench.
“Let the matter go before a bench of Justice A M Khanwilkar,” the bench said.
Last year, CBSE, CISCE, other state boards decided to evaluate students on the basis of alternative assessment criteria, students were evaluated on the basis of internal exams and a formula devised by the board.
The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) has announced the dates for class 10 and 12 term 2 exams. The term 2 exams will be held from April 26. Meanwhile, the Council for the Indian School Certificate Examinations (CISCE) is likely to conduct the ICSE Class 10 and ISC Class 12 exam in the last week of April. The detailed timetable, CISCE in a statement has said, will be released shortly.