Deepali Kalia
The Supreme Court has on May 31 adjourned the hearing on a plea filed by advocate Mamta Sharma demanding cancellation of class 12th board exams till June 3rd.
The plea submitted by Mamta Sharma reads, “In view of the unprecedented health emergency and rising numbers of the COVID-19 cases in the country, the conduct of examination, either offline or online or blended in upcoming weeks is not possible and delay in the examination will cause irreparable loss to the students as time is the essence in taking admission in higher education courses in foreign universities.”
Attorney General KK Venugopal told a bench of Justices AM Khanwilkar and Dinesh Maheshwari that the government will make the final decision within the next two days on whether to conduct the 12th board exams amid the ongoing COVID 19 pandemic.
“No issue. You take the decision. You are entitled to it. If you are departing from the policy of last year, then you must give tangible reasons for it”, the two-judge bench said to the Attorney General.
“List the matter on Thursday, i.e. 03.06.2021 as requested by the learned Attorney General for India, as the competent authorities are examining all aspects of the matter and are likely to take an in-principle decision, which would be placed before the court on that day,” the bench stated in its order.
On May 23rd the states had in a meeting with the Centre showed consensus about conducting the CBSE board exams for a limited no. of subjects and for a shorter time but some states like Maharashtra and Delhi had opposed conducting physical exams in the middle of the pandemic.
The Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (Ficci) also recommended the cancellation of board exams to the Union Education Ministry.
On 14th April, the Central government had cancelled class 10th board exams and postponed class 12th board exams.