The High Court of Karnataka on Wednesday declined to interfere with the State government’s decision to conduct the SSLC exam in the ongoing COVID-19 situation, but directed Deputy Commissioners to set up helplines to assist students to use public transport to reach the examination centres.
The court also directed the State government to ensure that the students, who write and succeed in te SSLC exam in the second round during September owing to their inability to appear for the first round beginning from June 25, do not lose an academic year.
A Division Bench, comprising Chief Justice Abhay Shreeniwas Oka and Justice P. Krishna Bhat, issued the directions while disposing of a PIL petition, filed by Lokesh M. and two other advocates.
The petitioners had sought direction for cancelling the SSLC exam for 2019-20 and promotion of students based on their marks in the preparatory exams.
However, the Bench said that the courts should always go slow in interfering with academic matters as it is best left to the academicians and the experts in the field, while noticing that a committee, headed by the Minister for Primary and Secondary Education, had resolved to conduct the SSLC exam after consulting experts.
SOP produced
In response to a query by the Bench in the morning session on safety measures taken to protect students in the prevailing situation, Advocate-General Prabhuling K. Navadgi, in the afternoon session, produced a Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) issued by the Karnataka Secondary Education Examination Board on May 27.
The Bench, from the SOP, found that various safeguards, like social distancing in examination halls by restricting the number of students in a room to 18-20, separate rooms for students having symptoms of COVID-19 and from containment zones, has been put in place. However, the Bench said that both the government and the board has to scrupulously follow the social distancing norms inside every examination hall.
The SOP shows that both the government and the board are fully concerned about safety of students, the Bench observed while pointing out to the A-G that though the SOP dealt with the issue of transport arrangement to the students it required to be streamlined by setting up a helpline in each district. The A-G accepted the court’s suggestion.
Further, the Bench directed that the students, who have left for other States and those residing in containment zones, should be informed through an SMS about the availability of the second round of the exam to be conducted within two months from June 4, if they were not able to appear in the first round between June 25 and June 4.
On the contention made on behalf of the petitioners that the examination cannot be conducted as the academic year 2019-20 ended on April 11, the Bench said that they have not produced any statutory provision that prohibits the conduct of exam after the expiry of an academic year.
