Rejecting a student’s plea that he should be awarded one mark for a particular answer in a subject in the 12th standard examination, the Madras High Court has reiterated that it could not take up the role of directing authorities to grant marks.
Such an action is not permissible for the High Court, a Division Bench, comprising Justice R. Banumathi and Justice T.S. Sivagnanam, observed, while dismissing writ appeals filed by minor Arun represented by his mother K.Geetha of Madurai.
Originally, in a writ petition, the student prayed the court for a direction to Director of Government Examinations to award one mark for question No.14 of Section A of in the Biology paper.
On account of wrong choices given in a multiple choice question, he said he was not in a position to indicate the correct answer and therefore, he should be awarded a full mark. In fact, it appeared that in one of the choices given in the said question, there was a spelling mistake.
The writ petition was dismissed by a single judge holding that in such academic matters, it was for the academicians to take note of the grievance and the court could not take up the role of directing authorities to grant marks and it was open to the petitioner to approach the authorities.
Thereafter, he submitted a representation to educational authorities. As his attempt did not yield any result, he filed yet another writ petition which was also dismissed. Upholding the single judge’s order, the Division Bench said, “In academic matters of this nature, court cannot take up the role of granting grace marks.”
