Delhi HC refuses to direct reopening of CBSE class 12 re-evaluation portal

NEW DELHI: The Delhi High Court on Friday refused to direct the reopening of CBSE's portal for the re-evaluation of class 12 answer sheets on a PIL by the Congress' student wing.

A vacation bench of Justices Neena Bansal Krishna and Madhu Jain observed that an individual student was free to take appropriate action if aggrieved and that reopening the portal -- which was operational from June 2 to 7 -- would delay the entire process of result declaration .

"For you, it is one week, but the whole process gets delayed by a month... You are not understanding. It is not one step," remarked the bench. "I am not giving further directions. Whoever is aggrieved, let the individual approach," it further said.

As the counsel appearing for the National Students' Union of India (NSUI) urged the court to order reopening of the portal for a few more days, Solicitor General (SG) Tushar Mehta, appearing for the authorities, submitted that the aggrieved students have already submitted their requests and the disputed answer sheets are being considered.

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Mehta said the PIL was based on "very general assumptions" and if the NSUI's prayers were allowed, the undergraduate admission of more than 17 lakh students would be adversely affected. He added that the portal's deadline can't be extended at the petitioner's behest, as it would not be in the interest of students.

He informed the court that the deadline was earlier extended by a day, and the portal was closed on June 7 instead of June 6. "The system has operated for those who wanted to apply... More than 1.67 lakh students have requested, and 3.8 lakh answer sheets are being examined," the SG said.

"Students who were aggrieved have come before us. This is not a small figure. This means the portal has worked," he added. Mehta also said that prior to the verification and re-evaluation platform, the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) opened a portal from May 19 to 25 for students to obtain their scanned answer sheets, pursuant to which around 4 lakh students requested more than 11 lakh answer sheets.

On a request by the NSUI counsel, the court listed the matter for hearing before the roster bench in July. On June 8, the court sought the stand of the Centre and the CBSE on NSUI's petition, which has also sought an independent inquiry into the alleged irregularities in the on-screen marking (OSM) system for class 12 exam.

The PIL, filed through advocate Rishav Ranjan, has further sought manual rechecking and physical verification of answer sheets of aggrieved students. In the petition, the NSUI has said the sharp decline in overall performance in this year's class 12 results has led to widespread concern among students and parents regarding the fairness, consistency and reliability of the OSM system, especially in the light of several requests for scanned answer books and complaints on discrepancies and technical issues acknowledged by the CBSE.

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It asserted that concerns around OSM were not confined to a "small set of students" and those whose answer sheets were affected by scanning defects, mismatch errors or other technical failures cannot be made to suffer because of deficiencies in the system.

"The respondent no. 2 (CBSE) itself acknowledged, through its own public communications, that the portal for obtaining scanned copies of answer books suffered technical glitches and that a very large number of applications, approximately 1,27,146 applications concerning 3,87,399 scanned answer books, had been submitted in a very short time," the plea has submitted.

"The petitioner submits that this figure reflects an extraordinary level of concern and lack of confidence amongst students regarding the process. When such a large number of students seek scanned copies immediately after result declaration, the matter cannot be treated as a routine post-result formality," it added.

The plea has further claimed that the existing grievance mechanism is inadequate as it left students with "limited digital remedies" and "no meaningful process for manual verification or independent rechecking of disputed answer books".

The PIL has also sought a direction to the authorities to formulate and implement proper safeguards, protocols and guidelines for future digital evaluation systems. A prayer is made to award compensatory higher marks to students whose answer scripts are missing or blurred.