Cuttack: In a major relief for 74 Class XII students from Padampur Public School in Odisha’s Bargarh district, the Orissa High Court has directed the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) to publish their 2025 examination results within one week and issue mark sheets and certificates accordingly.
The court quashed the board’s earlier order cancelling their results on allegations of using unfair means, citing a lack of concrete evidence.
Justice Ananda Chandra Behera delivered the judgment on April 10, ruling that the blanket cancellation was unsustainable under law. “When there is no authentic/concrete legal proof before CBSE authorities to reach a definite conclusion that the petitioners had adopted malpractice during examination in respect of some answers in two to three subjects, then, at this juncture, the cancellation of the result of the petitioners cannot be sustainable under law,” the judge observed.
The students had appeared for the Senior School Certificate Examination (Class XII) 2
025 at the Odisha Adarsha Vidyalaya, Bandupali centre. When results were announced on May 13, 2025, their scores were withheld and marked as “Result Later” (RL). A subsequent order dated May 26, 2025, from the CBSE regional director in Bhubaneswar, categorised their performance under “Unfair Means (UFM)” and cancelled results across all subjects.
The students initially moved the High Court, which on December 8, 2025, asked them to submit representations to the board. But with no satisfactory response from the CBSE, they approached the HC again.
The petitioners argued that the CBSE’s decision was based merely on “inferences, surmises and conjectures” without direct evidence, while other students at the same centre received their results normally. They claimed this amounted to a discriminatory “pick and choose” approach, violating their right to equality under Article 14 of the Constitution.
Finding merit in the submissions, Justice Behera quashed the cancellation of the result of the petitioners. “All the CBSE authorities are jointly and severally directed to publish the result of the Senior School Certificate Examination, 2025 (Class-XII) of the petitioners within a week from the date of this judgment and communicate the result of the petitioners as well as its consequential certificates and mark sheets as per the rules immediately after publication of their results,” he added.