Students appeared for improvement equal victim of pandemic, to be treated at par with regulars: Delhi HC

The Delhi High Court has held that the scheme approved by the Supreme Court for assessing students due to cancellation of CBSE exams in light of COVID-19 will also apply to students, who appeared for improvement examinations as they are equal victims of the pandemic.

The high court said like regular students, those who appeared for improvement exams would also be entitled to avail of the scores as per the assessment scheme or appear for the optional examination whenever it is held by the Central Board of Secondary Examination (CBSE).

“The student having sacrificed one full year and also having improved his scores in two of the subjects to a much higher level than what he had scored in the previous year, in the opinion of the court, there is no reason as to why he should be treated differently from the regular candidates,” Justice Prathiba M Singh said.

The high court’s order came while hearing a plea by a student who appeared in CBSE class 12th exams held in February-March, 2019 and secured 95.25 per cent.

Thereafter, to improve his score, he dropped one year and decided to re-appear in Accountancy, English Core, Economics and Business Studies for an improvement examination in 2020.

While other exams were held as per schedule, the Business Studies exam, which was slated for March 24, was cancelled due to the lockdown announced on account of COVID-29.

The student, Sanyam Gupta, sought that his result for the improvement examinations ought to be declared and in respect of the cancelled paper of Business Studies, he should be treated at par with the regular students for whom an assessment scheme was approved by the apex court.

The high court directed the CBSE to issue a corrected marksheet to the student.

“Let the consolidated marksheet reflecting the scores in the improvement examinations for all four subjects, that is, English Core, Economics, Business Studies and Accountancy after applying the assessment scheme dated July25, 2020, be released within a week,” it said.

The high court said, “An improvement student is equally a victim of the pandemic just like a regular student. In the case of an improvement student like the petitioner, the cancellation leads to a greater loss in as much as his entire effort and hard work for the last one year has been put to naught.

“The pandemic has affected one and all. If students have been able to appear in a few examinations and for no fault of theirs, one of the examinations is getting cancelled, they should be able to score the average of their improvement scores in the improvement examination as per the scheme of the CBSE which has been approved by the Supreme Court,” it said.

The CBSE had submitted that it had taken a separate decision in respect of students who had appeared for the improvement examination and that the assessment scheme which was placed before the apex court was only concerned to regular students.

It had contended that improvement students could not be treated at par with regular students as they had already had the opportunity to appear once in the examinations.

The high court said that in case any student’s score is reduced in the improvement examination, by applying the assessment scheme, the said students would have the benefit of the legal position, that is, they would be able to rely on the better of the scores.

As far as CBSE is concerned, the CBSE would apply the assessment scheme for release of the marksheets in the case of all improvement candidates in respect of their cancelled examination as well.

(Photo Credit: PTI)