Refusing to give the nod to correct a student's internal assessment marks "wrongly" uploaded on the website of the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE), the Delhi High Court said, that once a school uploads the internal assessment marks of a student on the website of the CBSE, it cannot seek any correction, even if there was an error while uploading the marks.
"Utter chaos would result if schools are permitted to commit errors while uploading students' marks on CBSE's website and thereafter, call upon the Board to correct the marks awarded at their end," Justice C Hari Shankar noted in the judgment stating the court regrets that "it has to rule from the head and not from the heart."
The high court was dealing with the petition on behalf of one Miloni, a Class X student of the Indian School at Muscat, Oman, affiliated to the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) seeking to change 18 marks into 20 in internal assessment in the Social Studies paper which was "wrongly" entered by the school.
On July 16, 2020 itself, the school addressed a communication to the CBSE, stating that it had erroneously uploaded the internal assessment marks of seven students, including Miloni, as 18 out of 20 instead of 20 out of 20. As such, the school requested the CBSE to carry out the necessary corrections at its end.
In its order, the court said, "The CBSE would also not be in a position to blindly accept such requests, and would, if this practice were to be allowed, have to conduct independent verifications in each such case to ascertain the actual marks which the candidate had been awarded."
CBSE, however, said that it was not possible to accede to the request to change the internal assessment marks of the seven candidates, in view of the circulars issued by it which stated that while uploading marks, schools will ensure that correct marks are uploaded as no correction in the marks will be allowed once marks are uploaded.
"Though, therefore, this Court once again empathises with Miloni, it regrets its inability to come to her aid. The writ petition is dismissed with no order as to costs," the order said.
