The courtroom where the hearing of PIL on 10th, 12th board examinations took place saw an overwhelming scenario. The bench of Justice AM Khanwilkar, Dinesh Maheshwari and CT Ravikumar dismissed the PIL filed by Advocate on Record Prashant Padhmanabhan on behalf of Child Rights Activist Anubha Srivastava Sahai.
The plea concerning the cancellation of online examinations for class 10,12th boards had been listed for an urgent hearing today afternoon (23rd February2022) by Advocate on record Prashant Padmanabhan
The bench said that the concerned authorities governing examinations (CBSE) are yet to finalize the exam schedule and thus called the PIL to be ill advised, Ill conceived and premature.
The Bench said that if any student would not be convinced with the decisions of the examination governing authorities, they may set challenge in such regard.
If the decisions of authorities are not in accordance with rules & the Act, it will be open to aggrieved persons to set challenge in that regard", the Bench said.
Advocate on record Prashant Padmanabhan started off by stating all the previous orders that were passed by the bench of Justice AM Khanwilkar regarding cancellation of physical examinations in the past years of distress.
The Counsel went on to say that the examination results for multiple choice questions that were held offline in previous semester (December 2021) have not yet been declared and students have been in continuous distress.
What happened in the past cannot be the basis for the present relief. the Bench said
Expressing his displeasure upon the contentions of the PIL petition, Justice Khanwilkar said, "Such petitions give false hopes to students. Entertaining such petitions is only increasing confusion in system. What kinds of petitions are being filed? Let authorities take decisions. You can challenge that order
"These kinds of petitions will mislead...for the last three days we have been seeing news items everywhere... What kind of petitions are filed & publicity is being given? This has to stop... this will create confusion", Justice Khanwilkar said after he read the order.
The Bench thus dismissed the PIL.
The Bench initially decided to levy hefty fines on the petitioner but later on refrained from doing so.
This has to stop. Don't come up again or there will be exemplary costs. Let students & authorities do their job. You can't file a PIL like this. Whoever has filed we're saying for that petitioner", Justice Khanwilkar said
