NEW DELHI, May 31: The Government will take a final decision within the next two days on whether to conduct class 12th board exams amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, the Supreme Court was informed today.
Attorney General K K Venugopal told this to a bench of Justices A M Khanwilkar and Dinesh Maheshwari which said if the Centre decides to depart from the last year’s policy, wherein the remaining board exams were cancelled due to the pandemic, then it must give “tangible reasons” for it.
“No issue. You take the decision. You are entitled to it. If you are departing from the policy of last year, then you must give tangible reasons for it,” the bench told Venugopal.
Observing that the last year’s decision was taken after deliberations, the apex court said, “If you are departing from that policy, please give us good reasons so that we can examine it.”
The bench was hearing a plea seeking directions to cancel the class 12 exams of the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) and Council for the Indian School Certificate Examination (CISCE) amid the pandemic situation.
The apex court on June 26, 2020 had approved the schemes of the CBSE and CISCE for cancellations of remaining board examinations scheduled from July 1 to 15 last year due to the COVID-19 pandemic and also approved their formula for assessment of examinees.
During the hearing conducted through video-conferencing today, the Attorney General told the bench, “The government will take a final decision within the next two days. We are hoping that your lordships will give us time till Thursday (June 3) so that we can come back with the final decision”.
Venugopal said that last year, board exams for some papers were over before the COVID-19 induced national lockdown was imposed in March 2020.
“We don’t want to go into the nitty-gritty at this stage. You take the decision. Hope has been expressed by the petitioner that policy adopted last year can be adopted this year too. If you are departing from that, you must have tangible reasons for it,” the bench observed. (PTI)
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