New policy formulated for evaluation of private CBSE students in Gulf countries: Centre to SC

The Centre on Monday informed the Supreme Court that the CBSE has come up with a new policy for the evaluation of private students, who were affected by the cancellation of Class XII board examination in Gulf countries due to the recent Iran-US war.

A bench of Justices SVN Bhatti and Vipul M Pancholi was told by Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, appearing for the Centre and the CBSE, that a fresh all-India policy has been framed to address the concerns of similarly situated students affected by the cancellation of examinations in the Gulf countries due to the regional conflict.

Mehta said that under the new policy, which was notified on June 21, a distinct formula for evaluating the private students appearing for the board exam was developed.

Giving details, Mehta said for the subjects for which examination could not be held, the performance will be assessed based on the marks obtained by the private candidate in Class X and the last-attempted Class XII board examination. He said under the new policy, subjects for which the examination was cancelled, the marks would be computed as 40 per cent of theory marks scored in the Class X board examination and 60 per cent of theory marks scored in the last attempted Class XII board examination.

Mehta explained that there were two categories of students who were largely affected due to the cancellation of the examinations across seven Gulf countries, and they were regular school students and private candidates.

He said that the unique challenge posed by private candidates was that they had no school to supply internal assessment records such as quarterly, half-yearly and pre-board examination marks, which were the very basis on which the original March 27 evaluation scheme was designed to evaluate results.

The top court was hearing a plea filed by one Pransu Jigarkumar Patel, a private candidate from Al Jubail, Saudi Arabia, who had challenged CBSE’s failure to declare his Class XII improvement examination results as per the original evaluation scheme.

The petitioner had contended that while CBSE’s March 27 assessment scheme covered regular students, no clarification had been issued regarding private candidates appearing for improvement examinations, resulting in his result being withheld as “Result Later” (RL).

He had argued that the omission was arbitrary and discriminatory, adversely affecting his higher education prospects.

Patel had claimed that in his case, Physics and Chemistry examinations were held, but Mathematics, English and Computer Science papers were cancelled.

He had claimed that in the two papers of Physics and Chemistry in which he appeared, the evaluation was done on actual marks, while in the three cancelled subjects, the evaluation was done under the new formula, which was notified on June 21.

Mehta told the bench that under the new policy, the marks Patel received were higher than his earlier performance, and the result was communicated to him via email and would be updated in his DigiLocker.

He said that the policy further provided that if a student remained unsatisfied with the assessed marks, they could appear in the next regular examination.

The bench asked the counsel appearing for the petitioner whether his grievances had been addressed with the CBSE declaring a new policy.

Advocate Vineet Jindal, appearing for the petitioner, acknowledged that the result had been declared but urged the court to protect Patel’s right to seek copies of answer scripts and pursue re-evaluation in accordance with CBSE rules.

The bench pointed to the writ petition and said there were no such prayers made in it and clarified that the court cannot grant relief that was not requested.

The bench recorded the submission of the solicitor general and disposed of the matter, and granted liberty to the petitioner to pursue remedies in accordance with law in case he has any grievances.

The Class XII board examinations were cancelled by the CBSE in seven West Asian countries (Bahrain, Iran, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE.) due to the conflict in West Asia.