SC refuses to interfere with CBSE's decision to hold re-exam

The bench dismissed five petitions filed by students and parents and said that the prayers made could not be considered.

The Supreme Court on Wednesday refused to interfere with the decision of the Central Board of Secondary Education to conduct the re-examination of Class 12 economics paper after alleged question paper leak, saying it was the discretion of the Board.

A bench of justices S A Bobde and L Nageswara Rao dismissed a batch of petitions which challenged the decision of the CBSE to conduct the re-test.

"In the writ petition, we cannot order the CBSE to not to hold the re-examination. This is not the jurisdiction of this court to direct the CBSE not to conduct the examination. It is the discretion of the CBSE or the concerned authority," it said.

The apex court asked the students who have challenged the decision of the CBSE, to appear in the examination, if conducted.

During the hearing, senior advocate Sajan Poovayya, appearing for one of the petitioners, informed the court that one of the prayer which challenged the CBSE's March 28 decision of re-examination of Class 10 mathematics paper, has become infructuous.

"The CBSE has yesterday (Tuesday) announced that they would not hold Class 10 mathematics examination as after assessing the situation it was found that alleged paper leak had no substantial impact," the counsel said.

The bench dismissed five petitions filed by students and parents and said that the prayers made could not be considered.

Several petitions were filed before the apex court after the CBSE said on March 28 that the Class 10 maths and Class 12 economics papers had allegedly leaked.

Besides challenging the CBSE's decision, the petitioners also wanted a CBI probe into the alleged paper leak, saying several incidents were reported from various states and the Delhi Police was not competent to hold the nation-wide probe.

One of the petitioners, 15-year-old Rohan Mathew, also sought a direction to the CBSE to declare the results on the basis of the examinations already conducted.

The CBSE, on March 30, had announced that it would re-conduct the examination for economics for Class 12 throughout the country on April 25.

Mathew and several others have moved the top court seeking quashing of the CBSE's decision to re-conduct the Class 10 mathematics examination on several grounds, including violation of their fundamental rights.

Earlier, another plea was filed in the apex court by Reepak Kansal, a resident of Shakarpur here, challenging the decision of the CBSE to cancel and re-conduct the two papers.

"It is to be noted that this year, 16,38,428 students are appearing for the Class 10 and 11,86,306 students for Class 12 in the CBSE examinations.

"And therefore, to penalise the student community for an incident which is under investigation and without completion of that investigation/enquiry and issuing a notice on March 28, 2018 (for re-exams), affect the fundamental rights of students which is arbitrary, illegal and unconstitutional," the plea said.