Half-Yearly Public Exams For Classes 8, 9, 10th Withdrawn, Says Karnataka Govt; 'Why Harass Students?', Asks Supreme Court

The Supreme Court today (October 15) was informed that the Karnataka Government has withdrawn a notification for conducting half-yearly Public Exams for Classes 8, 9, 10th in districts Kalaburagi, Bidar, Raichur, Ballari, Yadgiri, Koppal of Karnataka, which was alleged to be in defiance of the Court's interim order. Based on this, the Court has asked Advocate KV Dhananjay (for petitioners) to take instructions, keeping the matter to be heard next week.On the last occasion, a bench of Justices Bela M. Trivedi and Satish Chandra Sharma allowed petitioners to file a contempt application against the Karnataka Government's proposal of conducting Board Exams where question papers will be set by the administrative office.Advocate KV Dhananjay had informed that since the court had given an interim order in their favour which stayed the decision of the Karnataka Government to hold Board Examinations for Classes 5, 8 and 9th, the proposal to conduct similar examinations would be in contempt of the court's order.Today, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, appearing for the State of Karnataka, submitted that the government had withdrawn the notification even before the contempt was filed. If any exam was conducted, the results shall not be declared. Advocate KV Dhananjay however informed that despite the interim stay, the Karnataka Government did conduct the public examinations. He said: "If the results were to be published, the parents have to be communicated."On this, Justice Bela said: "What is the State bent upon harassing these people?" Mehta responded that "nobody is interested in troubling the children" and tried reasoning with the Court that the examination was conducted as in some areas, the average marks obtained by students were less than 50.However, Justice Bela orally remarked that there is "some ego problem" and added that it is not permissible to conduct exams in the face of an interim order.Rounds of litigationOn March 12, through an interim order, the Supreme Court put on hold the Board Exams proposed to be held by the Karnataka Government for students of Classes 5, 8 and 9 of the schools affiliated to the State Board.A bench of Justices Trivedi & Pankaj Mithal directed the division bench of the High Court to decide expeditiously the main appeals filed by Karnataka State against the single judge's order without being influenced by the observations made by the Supreme Court.Allowing appeals filed by the associations of private schools and parents, the Supreme Court set aside the March 7 order of the division bench of the Karnataka High Court which stayed an order of the single judge of the High Court. The single judge on March 6 had quashed the Government's decision to hold Board Examinations for Classes 5, 8, and 9.Eventually, on March 22, the division bench of the High Court upheld's Karnataka Government's decision to conduct Board Examination for Classes 5, 8 and 9th.On April 8, the Supreme Court again stayed the announcement of results for the Board Examination for Classes 5, 8, and 9th including the March 22 division bench order of the Karnataka High Court which upheld Board Examinations for Classes 5, 8 and 9th.BackgroundThe issue arose after the Karnataka government issued two notifications appointing the KSEAB (Karnataka School Examination & Assessment Board) as the competent authority to conduct the "Summative Assessment-2" exams for students of Classes 5, 8, and 9 and the annual examination for Class 11, studying in government, aided and unaided schools and colleges, following the Karnataka State Board Syllabus.It was argued has the Summative Assessment-2 has all the trappings of a board examination, akin to those conducted by the CBSE or ICSE for students of 10th standard, and therefore the same was contrary to the RTE Act.This decision was challenged before the Karnataka High Court. A Single Judge quashed the government notifications. Justice Ravi V Hosmani said “When Government intends to bring changes to examination system affecting such large number of students, it would be desirable as well as mandatory to follow democratic procedure stipulated. And in case of failure, there need be no further justification to set such faulty measures at naught, regardless of merit policy and object behind such measures.”Further the bench held: “The respondents have not made any effort to justify impugned Notifications as compliant with requirement of Section 145 (4) of Education Act, they would have to be held as unsustainable.”However, in the State's appeal to a Division Bench, the Single Judge's judgment was stayed. Challenging the Division bench order, organizations of private schools and parents filed special leave petitions before the Supreme Court.Arguments before Supreme CourtSince the main appeals were pending before the division bench, the Supreme Court without going into the merits of the case said that the notifications prima facie appeared to violate Section 30 of the Right to Act and created...

Half-Yearly Public Exams For Classes 8, 9, 10th Withdrawn, Says Karnataka Govt; 'Why Harass Students?', Asks Supreme Court

Gursimran Kaur Bakshi

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