Coming as it did on the day of declaration of Class X public examination results, a judgment delivered by the Madras High Court Bench here on Thursday held that courts cannot compel the Directorate of Government Examinations (DGE) to revaluate answer scripts in the absence of a scheme or a legal provision for passing such an order.
Dismissing a writ petition, filed last year by the father of a girl seeking an order to revaluate his daughter’s Tamil answer script, Justice S. Vaidyanathan said: “If this writ petition is allowed, then there is every possibility of other students knocking at the doors of this court for a similar relief and the purpose of conducting Board examination will be depleted.”
The petitioner insisted on revaluation since his daughter had scored 488 out of 500 marks in the Class X public examinations last year and lost the chance of securing a scholarship awarded by her school to students who score more than 490 marks. He claimed that she missed the opportunity because of less marks awarded to her in the language paper.
He also said that her daughter initially suspected a mistake in totalling of marks in her Tamil answer script and applied for re-totalling. But her application did not evoke a positive response. Hence, he obtained the answer script through an application under the Right to Information Act, 2005 and filed the present petition.
Not finding any merit in the petitioner’s plea, Mr. Justice Vaidyanathan said: “It is seen that all the answers were properly corrected and some marks were awarded to them. Of course, to some of the answers, lesser marks were also allotted which does not mean that the petitioner’s daughter is entitled to get full marks for all the answers written by her.”
