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The Delhi High Court on Friday declined to order the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) to reopen its portal for re-evaluating Class 12 answer sheets in response to a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) filed by the National Students' Union of India (NSUI), Congress' student wing, according to PTI.
A vacation bench comprising Justices Neena Bansal Krishna and Madhu Jain noted that any individual student who felt aggrieved was free to pursue appropriate legal remedies. The court also observed that reopening the portal, which was open from June 2 to 7, would likely cause delays in the overall result declaration process.
"For you, it is one week, but the whole process gets delayed by a month... You are not understanding. It is not one step. I am not giving further directions. Whoever is aggrieved, let the individual approach," the bench stated.
Following a request from the NSUI's counsel, the court agreed to list the matter before the appropriate roster bench in July for further hearing.
Earlier, on June 8, the court had asked the Centre and CBSE to submit their responses to NSUI's petition. The petition also seeks an independent investigation into the alleged irregularities in the On-Screen Marking (OSM) system used for evaluating Class 12 examination papers.
What did SG Tushar Mehta say?
Counsel representing the NSUI requested the court to direct CBSE to keep the re-evaluation portal open for a few more days. However, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, appearing on behalf of the authorities, argued that students who were genuinely affected had already submitted their applications and their answer sheets were currently under review.
Mehta contended that the PIL was founded on “very general assumptions”. He warned that granting NSUI's request could negatively impact the undergraduate admission process of over 17 lakh students. He further stated that extending the deadline simply because of the petitioner's demand would not serve students' interests. The court was also informed that CBSE had already provided an extension by keeping the portal open until June 7 instead of the original closing date of June 6.
"The system has operated for those who wanted to apply... More than 1.67 lakh students have requested, and 3.8 lakh answer sheets are being examined. Students who were aggrieved have come before us. This is not a small figure. This means the portal has worked," Mehta said.
Mehta further informed the court that before launching the verification and re-evaluation portal, the CBSE had made a separate portal available from May 19 to May 25 for students to access scanned copies of their answer sheets. Through this facility, nearly 4 lakh students requested more than 11 lakh answer sheets.
Concerns around OSM were not confined to a 'small set of students': NSUI
The PIL, submitted through advocate Rishav Ranjan, also requests that answer sheets of students who are dissatisfied with their marks be physically verified and manually re-evaluated.
According to the petition filed by the NSUI, this year's Class 12 examination results have shown a significant drop in overall student performance, raising serious concerns among students and parents about the transparency, accuracy, and dependability of the On-Screen Marking (OSM) system.
The petition argues that these concerns have been intensified by the large number of applications seeking scanned copies of answer scripts, as well as complaints regarding evaluation discrepancies and technical glitches that have reportedly been acknowledged by the CBSE.
The petition argued that the issues surrounding the OSM system were not limited to just a handful of students. It maintained that students whose answer sheets may have been affected by scanning errors, mismatched records, or other technical glitches should not be unfairly disadvantaged due to shortcomings in the evaluation system.
The NSUI contended that any flaws in the assessment process must not come at the cost of students' academic interests and future opportunities.
"The respondent no. 2 (CBSE) itself acknowledged, through its own public communications, that the portal for obtaining scanned copies of answer books suffered technical glitches and that a very large number of applications, approximately 1,27,146 applications concerning 3,87,399 scanned answer books, had been submitted in a very short time," the plea mentioned.
It further stated, "The petitioner submits that this figure reflects an extraordinary level of concern and lack of confidence amongst students regarding the process. When such a large number of students seek scanned copies immediately after result declaration, the matter cannot be treated as a routine post-result formality.”
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