During the hearing, the Court took note of the fact that the CBSE was slated to announce the schedule for the board exams on Tuesday, June 1.
In the wake of the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in India, the Supreme Court announced today that it will hear a case seeking to cancel Class XII Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) and Indian Certificate of Secondary Education (ICSE) exams on Monday, May 31.
Today, Justices AM Khanwilkar and Dinesh Maheshwari of the Supreme Court said, Please be optimistic. There may be some resolution by Monday."
During the hearing, the Court noted that the CBSE was scheduled to release the board exam schedule on Tuesday, June 1st. As a result, the Court decided to hear the case a day earlier, on Monday. The petitioners were told to send copies of their petition to both boards as well as the Central government.
Advocate Mamta Sharma requested that the Court issue orders to the boards ordering the cancellation of the Class XII examinations and the development of an objective mechanism for declaring the results within a defined time frame.
The petition claims that the CBSE and ICSE letters deferring exams to an undefined date should be overturned because students cannot be subjected to uncertainty in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic, which is causing an unprecedented public health disaster.
“As far as the innocent students of Class12 are concerned, a step-motherly, arbitrary, inhuman direction has been issued to postpone their final examination for an unspecified duration, instead of following the directions propounded and accepted by them last year,” the plea reads.
The CBSE and ICSE officials, it has been argued, cannot remain "silent spectators" to the current situation by failing to make a prompt decision about the exams of 12 lakh students in Class XII. Last year, the Supreme Court ordered the Boards to determine and announce Class 12 exam results based on previous student assessments. The petitioner claims that the same methodology could be employed in the future.