Delhi HC refuses to entertain plea seeking direction to publish 'rational documents' on Class 10 assessment criteria

New Delhi [India], June 30 : The Delhi High Court on Wednesday refused to entertain a petition seeking an interim order to direct all the schools affiliated by the board to publish the rationale document for devised criteria for the assessment of students of Class 10 on their respective websites, before calculating the result and uploading the same on the CBSE portal.
A vacation Bench of Justice Manmohan and Justice Navin Chawla expressed unhappiness with the petitioner for coming at the eleventh hour with the petition and asked why the petitioner has sought an interim stay from the regular bench.
"Litigation is not a game of chance," the court said and remarked that this is not fair to seek an interim stay from the vacation bench in the eleventh hour.
After some argument, the petitioner sought to withdraw the petition.
The court said that the petition is dismissed as withdrawn but granted liberty to the petitioner to file a plea seeking an early hearing before a roster bench.
The plea was filed by Justice for All through advocates Shikha Sharma Bagga and Khagesh B Jha.
The petitioner organisation urged the court to issue direction to publish the rationale document for devised criteria for the assessment of students of Class 10 on the websites to bring transparency, and also so that the students may access it and could raise their grievances with the board well in time along with the sagacious grievance redressal mechanism by the board for the students.
"It is respectfully prayed from this court to pass an interim order to direct all the schools affiliated by the board to publish the rationale document for devised criteria for the assessment of students of class Xth on their respective websites, before calculating the result and uploading the same on the CBSE portal, to bring transparency, also so that the students may access it and could raise their grievances with the board well in time along with the sagacious grievance redressal mechanism by the board for the students, " the plea said.
The application was moved in an ongoing Public Interest Litigation (PIL) in which the court had issued notice to CBSE, Centre and Delhi court.
The PIL had sought direction for modification in policy for the tabulation of marks for Class 10 board exams 2021 based on the internal assessment conducted by the school.
The plea stated that the petitioner, conceding the responsibility of being extra cautious in PIL, "was expecting the government shall consider the illegality, up to the level of absurdity where CBSE instead of evaluating students, has been evaluating the school, in such a manner where most deprived groups of society are at further disadvantageous conditions and policy not only discriminates children from socially and economically but the grievance mechanism is such that the CBSE has left them on the mercy of School."
It further added that in the case of any mistake in entry by the teacher there is neither any grievance redressal and a student have to pay a heavy cost in terms of their academic career due to even inadvertent typing error of a teacher in his/her absence without having any role of his/her.