Orissa high court pulls up CBSE for holding back results of 72 Class XII students

In a partial relief to 72 Class XII students of two schools in Bargarh and Padampur, whose results were withheld for having allegedly employed "unfair means" during the board exam, Orissa high court on Monday criticized the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) for acting against the letter and spirit of its own rules and principles of natural justice.

Justice Dixit Krishna Shripad, who was hearing a group of petitions filed by the students, held that CBSE's action in withholding their Class XII board exam results without considering the students' side was arbitrary, stigmatic and legally untenable.

The court did not go in for any order for immediate declaration of results, but instead ordered CBSE to hold a fresh inquiry into the allegations of malpractice.

The petitioners' counsel approached the court, requesting the impugned orders to be invalidated along with the issuance of a direction to declare the results. The counsel for CBSE, on the other hand, requested the petitions to be dismissed and commanded the students to appear for the next examination, either supplementary or afresh.

But in the Sept 15 ruling, Justice Shripad decreed: "Justice of the case deserves the pendulum to halt somewhere in between. A mandate for new inquiry would achieve the golden mean between these two poles for the sake of upholding purity in examination process and justice to the students."

Pleading in court, the students' counsel argued that CBSE had acted in an arbitrary manner without providing them with any hearing or evidence of their wrongdoing. The counsel accused gross procedural impropriety, such as violation of the exam regulations and deprivation of a hearing — a fundamental principle of natural justice.

CBSE, in its defense, charged mass copying at the respective centres and stated that CCTV records — the key to the investigation — were not entirely accessible. It contended that given the "exceptional" circumstance of the case, it was within its rights to withhold results.

Justice Shripad dismissed this logic, noting: "After all, an exception to the rule does not drop from the sky. It must emanate at least by a reasonable interpretative process and in this case it has not emanated even by inference." He further noted that CBSE had not provided how it concluded culpability.

The court, while tugging at the schools' failure to retain CCTV footage after inspection in spite of explicit CBSE guidelines, noted, "There is a lot of scope for arguing that without the complicity of school officials, such lapses would not have occurred," showing distress over the fact that there has been no criminal action taken against the institutions concerned.