Delhi High Court order favours students taking CBSE improvement exams

New Delhi: In a major relief for students, the Delhi High Court has held that the assessment scheme, approved by the Supreme Court after cancellation of Central Board of Secondary Exams (CBSE) examinations due to outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic, will also be applicable to the students who appeared for the improvement examinations.

"There is no reason why improvement students should be treated any differently than the regular students since the pandemic has put them also to considerable disadvantage. Accordingly, it is held that the Assessment Scheme approved by the Supreme Court would also be applicable to improvement students," said a single judge bench of Justice Pratibha M. Singh.

"Such students would also be entitled to avail of the scores as per the scheme or appear for the optional examination, whenever it is held by the CBSE," the order read.

The order came on a petition filed by Sanyam Gupta, a student who had appeared in CBSE class 12 exams held in February-March 2019 and secured 95.25 per cent. In order to improve his score, he dropped one year and decided to re-appear in Accountancy, English Core, Economics and Business Studies in the improvement examination in 2020.

But, though the other exams took place, the Business Studies exam, which was slated for March 24, was cancelled as Covid impacted all spheres of life and a lockdown was imposed.

While passing the orders, the court asked the CBSE to issue a corrected marksheet to the student. "The pandemic has affected one and all. If students have been able to appear in few examinations and for no fault of theirs, one of the examinations is getting cancelled, they should be able to score the average of their improvement scores in the improvement examination as per the scheme of the CBSE which has been approved by the Supreme Court," it said.