Aishwarya Rathore-
The Karnataka High Court issued notice to the State Government on Tuesday in response to a petition seeking directions to follow the same assessment procedure for repeater students in the II PUC class as it does for normal students while awarding marks for the academic year 2020-2021.
A division bench issued the notice while hearing a petition filed by Karnataka EWS 1512 Residential Social Welfare Association. The results of all II PUC students are to be declared today.
The State Government recently notified the Court, while hearing another case that the regular students will be awarded marks taking 45% of their 10th standard marks and 45% of 1st year PU marks and will be given an additional 10% based on an assessment by the college. Whereas all repeater students will be granted just passing marks and 5% grace marks.
The petition states that the report submitted by the committee appointed by the state which has come out with this formula for passing 2nd PUC students without them appearing for examination is prepared without application of mind and it discriminates between fresh students and the repeaters/private students.
Advocate Siji Malayil appearing for the petitioner submitted, “The act of the 3rd respondent by awarding marks using different yardsticks to similarly placed students based on a so-called expert committee report without assigning any valid reason is a clear violation of Article 14 of the Constitution of India.”
Further, he submitted, “Since both classes of students have data regarding the 10th standard and 1st year PU examination, granting marks to regular students based on their 10th standard and 1st year PU marks and granting a 40% to the repeaters without any reason is violative of Article 14 of the Constitution of India.”
The petition seeks the Court to order the respondents to treat repeater students on an equal footing with new students when it comes to awarding marks and to use the same methodology for repeaters in the 2nd year pre-university examination for the academic year 2020-2021.
The petition also asks the respondent to give at least 45%, which is the minimum required for various courses, rather than 40%, so that the majority of repeaters can avoid taking an improvement exam, which is a possible risk due to the pandemic.
The matter will be next heard on July 27.
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