Brief Facts
Here, the petitioner informed the court that his son was declared ineligible to get the certification of passing in the 10th standard and the reason provided by the Directorate of Government Examinations was that the petitioner’s son did not satisfy the criteria of attendance.
It was claimed that the son of the petitioner was in the tenth grade during the academic year 2019-20 and that due to the COVID-19 outbreak, the government came up with a strategic policy to declare all tenth-grade students as successfully “passed”.
However, as per the petitioner, his son’s school decided to leave out his son’s name while compiling the list of candidates, and as a result, his son did not get any benefit from the Government’s policy.
Arguments from the side of the Petitioner
The petitioner also told the court that under G.O.No.48 dated 25.02.2021, the Government has once again decided to declare all students studying in the ninth, tenth, and eleventh grades as “passed.”
Therefore, the petitioner made a representation to the respondents to get his son announced as “passed” for the 2020-21 school year and hoped that his son will get benefit out of this Government Order. But he got no response and hence through this writ petition wants the court to further lay the path of direction.
Arguments from the side of the respondent
Here, the respondent gave the reason as to why they rejected the application of the petitioner. The respondent submitted that the petitioner’s son did not attend any classes during the academic year and hence was not applicable to get the advantage of the government policy.
They also gave the structure of the whole process of how the respondents i.e. educational authorities deal with this issue and provided the reason for the delay in providing the solution. Furthermore, they promised to give a solution within three weeks of receiving a copy of this order.
Court’s Observation
The court observed that the students are experiencing a challenging situation in this pandemic where they have been asked to attend classes that are held online. But apart from conducting online classes, it is impossible for the authorities to conduct examinations online for the higher classes and thus the government’s decision was reasonable to pass all the students of grades 9th, 10th and 11th.
After going through the whole policy of the government on the same, the court marked that there were no other requirements mentioned in the policy of government apart from the condition that the student must be enrolled with a school.
Therefore, the ground on which the student was rejected to avail the benefit of the policy is invalid. The court stated that “the respondent cannot add something to the government order when it is not available in the government order”.
Further, the court also pointed out that “there is already a surge in the number of cases before the psychiatrists to whom children are taken for counselling during this pandemic period. The children are facing a new problem and their energy is getting dissipated by confining them inside the house.” Therefore, the social and educational authorities need to address this problem by being more kind with children and not adding more pressure on them.
Court’s Decision
Given the aforementioned arguments and observations, the court directed the relevant authorities to declare the student (petitioner’s son) as passed in the 10th standard examination and also gave the order to the respondents to complete the whole process within two weeks after receiving the copy of the order.
Click here to view the judgement
Libertatem.in is now on Telegram. Follow us for regular legal updates and judgment from courts. Follow us on Google News, Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook & Twitter. You can subscribe to our Weekly Email Updates. You can also contribute stories like this and help us spread awareness for a better society. Submit Your Post Now.
