Cuttack: The Orissa High Court has pulled up the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) for withholding results of 72 Class XII students in Odisha without following due procedure.
The results were delayed owing to use of unfair means in two examination centres of the district – Odisha Adarsha Vidyalaya (OAV) at Bandhupali and Padampur Public School where students of the six schools including four OAVs had appeared for the tests.
Justice Dixit Krishna Shripad, while hearing a batch of petitions filed by the students, ruled that CBSE’s decision without hearing the students was arbitrary, stigmatic and legally unsustainable.
Citing Articles 14 and 21 of the Constitution, the court emphasised that principles of natural justice are fundamental. “When God himself is said to have given an opportunity of hearing to Adam & Eve for consuming the proscribed fruit in the Eden Garden, mortals like the CBSE authorities and others could not have unilaterally decided something stigmatic not only to the young minds like the petitioners but to the agony of their parents,” he remarked.
The court further emphasised that the board did not substantiate the students’ culpability.
Alleging mass-copying in the examination centres, the CBSE had defended its actions, citing unavailability of full CCTV footage and invoking ‘exceptional circumstances’ to bypass Bye-Law 36, which outlines procedures and penalties in malpractice cases.
Justice Shripad, however, found no convincing basis for such deviation. “After all, an exception to the rule does not fall from the sky. It should arise at least by a reasonable interpretative process and in this case it has not arisen even by inference,” Justice Shripad observed, stressing that CBSE could not unilaterally ignore established procedures without clear justification.
He also criticised the schools for failing to preserve CCTV footage as per CBSE guidelines. He noted potential complicity by school officials and expressed concern over the lack of criminal action against the institutions. “No plausible explanation is offered… mere suspension [of principals] is highly insufficient. There is a lot of scope for arguing that without the complicity of school officials, such lapses would not have occurred.”
Justice Shripad, however, refrained from ordering immediate declaration of results and instead directed the CBSE to conduct a fresh inquiry over allegations of malpractice. “Justice of the case warrants the pendulum to stop somewhere in between. A direction for fresh inquiry would strike the golden balance between these two extremes for the purpose of maintaining purity in the examination process and justice to the students,” he noted.