Delhi High Court Slams CBSE's Reluctance in Class 12 Answer Sheets Re-evaluation

The Delhi High Court has censured the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) for its reluctance with re-evaluation of class 12 exam mark sheets.

CBSE Class 12 answer sheet re-evaluation 2017

Initially, CBSE had a policy of not re-evaluating the answer sheets on its own volition
On July 6, the High Court quashed the self-declared policy of CBSE and ordered it to re-evaluate the board exam papers for all the students who sought it

Why did CBSE class 12 answer sheets re-evaluation not happen?

Here's the catch. The High Court order to go ahead with re-evaluation came on July 6 and the deadline to apply for re-evaluation was July 7. Apparently, a lot of students had missed out on such a short notice. This trick was caught red handed by the court through petitioners who had raised a complaint in this regard.

CBSE's defence

The Board, in its defense, contended that the deadline for accepting applications was July 7, as per an earlier order of the high court, and added that re-evaluation cannot be an open-ended exercise.

Delhi High Court Censures CBSE for Scrapping Re-Evaluation of Board Exam Papers

High Court's response for CBSE's defence

A bench of Acting Chief Justice Gita Mittal and Justice C Hari Shankar, however, did not accept the CBSE's argument and said, "Why did you not post our order online on your website? You gave the students only one-day's time (on July 7) to apply for re-evaluation without even informing them about our decision (of July 6)." The court also said that once it passed the July 6 order, the deadline no longer applied. In its July 6 order the high court had said that "the relief (of re-evaluation) is not confined only to the petitioners before it and shall be admissible to all the similarly situated students who seek re-evaluation of their answer sheets".

Difference in marks

The marks of all four petitioner students saw a substantial increase, their lawyers told the bench which said to CBSE, "Have you looked at the disparity? 64 marks have become 93 (in one case). That is too much." When the Board said that in most cases the increase was of only one of two marks, the court remarked that "even one mark makes a lot of difference".

Next hearing

The matter has now been fixed for further hearing on August 29.

Delhi High Court Orders CBSE to Lift Restrictions on Re-Evaluation of Class 12 Answer Sheets