With the onslaught of the second wave of COVID-19, several states along with ICSE, CBSE boards cancelled Class 10 board exams.
Even Maharashtra has cancelled Class 10/SSC board exams.
Now, the Bombay High Court bench of Justices Shahrukh Kathawalla and Surendra Tawade on Monday ordered the ICSE, CBSE and the SSC to file affidavits in response to a PIL seeking directives to the Union education ministry to formulate a marking scheme for 10th class students.
Pune-based Dhananjay Kulkarni (61) petitioned the judges through advocate Uday Warunjikar.
Appearing through video conferencing, Warunjikar told the judges that the state SSC board has cancelled the class 10 exams and a similar decision has been taken by the ICSE and CBSE boards.
"All the boards have taken independent decisions. This would create a huge confusion for 2 crore students and it would result in chaos," Warunjikar argued.
Warunjikar pointed out that certain boards have decided to conduct entrance exams for class 11 exams. "Different states have come up with different decisions," the counsel pointed out.
The counsel further said that the Union education ministry was approached with a representation seeking to have a uniform formula or marking scheme.
"A representation was made for the Union to step in to ensure uniformity. Every time a student from a different board will come before this court and there will be tremendous litigation. The central government will have to intervene and take a uniform decision," Warunjikar argued.
At this, special counsel for Union government Sandesh Patil told the bench that the Union has control only over CBSE and not on SSC, which is a state board and the ICSE is an autonomous board.
Patil further apprised the bench of the fact that the CBSE has already issued a notification regarding the marking scheme.
Meanwhile, advocate Kiran Gandhi for the SSC board told the bench that his clients are yet to devise a formula or the marking scheme and thus the petition is pre-mature. The bench accordingly ordered all the three boards as well as the Union to submit their affidavits.
(With inputs from Narsi Benwal)
