The Madras High Court has directed Directorate of Government Examinations (DGE) to ensure that the public examination centres for students of Class X and XII were situated as close as possible to schools where they study in order to avoid making them travel long distance.
Justices K.K. Sasidharan and P. Velmurugan issued the direction while disposing of writ appeals preferred by a group of students from Puducherry challenging the dismissal of writ petitions filed by them by a single judge of the High Court on February 24 on the ground that they had approached the court at the eleventh hour.
The petitioners, studying in Class XII in Achariya Siksha Mandir at Villianur in Puducherry, had challenged the of DGE decision of fixing Navalar Nedunchezian Government Higher Secondary School at Lawspet as their examination centre on the ground that the latter was situated at about 17 km from their residential area.
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Claiming that covering such a long distance on the day of the examinations would be taxing for them since they would have to travel for nearly an hour to the reach the centre, the students sought a direction to conduct the examinations at any centre in Villianur.
However, the single judge dismissed their cases on the ground of delay in approaching the court and after taking into consideration that the examinations for the academic year 2016-17 were to begin from March 2 and the DGE had already made all arrangements for conducting the examinations after assessing the availability of infrastructure in various centres.
“This court has certainly got sympathy for these students. Of course, the first respondent (DGE) ought to have taken into consideration the distance between the school and the examination centre while allotting centres for public examinations. Travelling for quite a long distance to write Public Examination is certainly a burden for the students and it will certainly deter their concentration in writing exams.
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“Had the fourth respondent (school in which the petitioners were studying) approached this court immediately after allocation of examination centre, which was completed a month ago, this court would have certainly considered their case,” Justice B. Rajendran had observed in his order.
Concurring with his decision, the Division Bench said “the learned single judge was perfectly correct in observing that it would not be possible to change the centre at the eleventh hour.” However, in future, they directed the DGE to ensure that examination centres were situated closer to the schools in which the students were studying.