PU Board taken to task over student’s petition

It did not file a response to his plea on mistakes in question paper

The Karnataka High Court on Monday took the pre-university board to task for not filing its response to a petition filed by a student alleging that this year’s II PU Mathematics paper had many mistakes.

Pointing out that every mark counts a lot to a student’s future, Justice B.S. Patil said the board should deal such complaints on a war-footing.

On noticing that there was no response from the board on the petition filed by Kaushik H.M, a student of Seshadripuram College, Yelahanka, Bangalore, the court pulled up the officials for not filing response despite the grant of time.

The court warned the board that it would issue directions for disciplinary action against officials besides imposing heavy cost if the response was not filed immediately.

The petitioner complained that he could not answer the questions properly because of the mistakes. The examination was held on March 18.

Notice

The court on Monday ordered issue of notice to the Chief Secretary, the State police chief, and the secretary to Speaker, Karnataka Legislative Assembly, in response to a petition alleging that the Speaker’s office declined to give information under the RTI Act.

Justice S. Abdul Nazeer passed the order on a petition filed by city-based advocate N.P. Amruthesh.

The petitioner pointed out that he filed a police complaint with the Vidhana Soudha police on January 24 to ensure the safety of the Speaker when his location could not be ascertained during the then prevailing political turmoil.

In February, the petitioner sought information under RTI about the daily engagement and programmes of the Speaker at the time of political turmoil as it was reported that he was untraceable and had gone to an undisclosed location.

However, the office of the Speaker gave an endorsement on March 30 declining to give information about the movements of Speaker K.G. Bopaiah outside Bangalore from January 1 to 31 stating that information sought did not come under the purview of “public interest.”

The petitioner challenged this endorsement while contending that Speaker’s office could not deny information under the RTI Act.