CBSE has decided to re-conduct Class 12 economics exam on April 25
The Delhi High Court today dismissed a plea seeking to change the date of the re-examination of the CBSE Class 12 economics paper, which the Board
has decided to conduct on April 25 after the paper was leaked in March. However, while hearing one of the pleas by a group of students seeking re-test of
Class 10 mathematics paper, the court asked the Central Board Secondary Education (CBSE) to submit the records relating to the board's decision not to conduct re-examination and listed the matter for April 20.
The court rejected a plea by NGO Suniye which sought a date change or to make it optional on the grounds that the date decided by board clashed with
some entrance examinations including National Defence Academy and engineering.
Apart from this, the bench of Acting Chief Justice Gita Mittal and Justice C. Hari Shankar, which rejected the plea, was hearing two different pleas related to the CBSE Class 10 mathematics paper.
The order came after the court was apprised by the CBSE's counsel that it has issued a notification that the Class 10 maths examination will not be re-conducted as it cannot afford to hold it again and make over 16 lakh students appear in it, reported Indo-Asian News Agency.
Meanwhile, the court disposed off a plea by NGO Social Jurist after the counsel Ashok Agarwal said he was satisfied with the board's decision of not holding the re-examination for the Class 10 paper.
Social Jurist had sought that the CBSE be directed to hold the Class 10 exam in April, if required, and not in July as it had proposed earlier.
The CBSE told the court that it had decided not to hold the re-examination of the Class 10 maths paper as a scientific evaluation of random answer sheets did not indicate any unusual pattern to believe that there was widespread benefit of the alleged paper leak.
The CBSE also said that another reason was that Class 10 was a gateway to Class 11 and therefore "remains largely an internal segment of school education system".
The leak of the Class 10 maths and Class 12 economics question papers has affected lakhs of students across India, thus, it caused humongous uproar over the issue.
On April 4,
the Supreme Court also dismissed a bunch of petitions challenging the re-examination decision. A bench of Justice S.A. Bobde and Justice L. Nageswara Rao said it was the "discretion of the CBSE (Central Board of Secondary Education) to conduct the re-examination and court will not interfere".
In the backdrop of the paper leak, the Human Resource Development (HRD) Ministry has set up a
seven-member committee to examine the board's examination process and the panel was asked to submit a report by May 31 to the Ministry.
In another development last week, the CBSE announced April 27 as the rescheduled date to conduct class 10 and 12 exams in Punjab, which had to be cancelled due to 'Bharat Bandh' in the state. The exams of French, Sanskrit, and Urdu Course-B for class 10 and Hindi elective, Gujarati, Nepali, Kashmiri, and Hindi Core for class 12, now will be held on April 27.
The board has conducted the Class 10 annual examinations from March 5 to April 4 while the Class 12 examinations were scheduled to be concluded by April 13 with
physical education paper, which now has been extended till April 25. The decision to conduct re-examination has affected various plans of parents and students, including travel holiday plans.
Class 12 economics paper was leaked in handwritten format three days prior to the exam on March 26 and Class 10 maths paper was leaked five days prior to the exam on March 28.
(With Inputs from IANS)
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