CBSE: Confusion prevails among students on last day to apply for scrutiny of marks

CBSE had reintroduced its scrapped re-evaluation policy after the high court intervened last month. However, the board had placed several conditions.

A day after the Delhi High Court lifted conditions imposed by the Central Board of Secondary Education on students looking to revaluate their Class 12 exam results, students outside the Regional Office of the board at Patparganj claimed that they were still not allowed to get more than 10 questions re-examined in each subject.

The Delhi high court lifted all conditions imposed by the CBSE on students looking to revaluate their class 12 exam results, giving succour to thousands of candidates denied scrutiny of answer sheets beyond 12 major subjects.

CBSE had reintroduced its scrapped re-evaluation policy after the high court intervened last month. However, the board had placed several conditions, such as only students who had already applied for photocopies of their answer booklets would be allowed to apply for ‘scrutiny of marks,’ only a limited pool of subjects where re-evaluation would be allowed, only 10 questions to be re-evaluated per subject, and that the scores of the student would only change if the scores increased by 5 or more marks, or was reduced by 1 or more points.

On Thursday, the high court had lifted these conditions, in the wake of a plea filed by advocate Sandeep Bajaj, representing four students, challenging the board’s notification.

However, students who had reached the regional offices of the CBSE claimed that they were still bound by many of these conditions.

“They are still only allowing us to apply for 10 questions to be re-evaluated. The form they are using is the same as before, which only has 10 rows, to fill the details of 10 questions,” claimed Abhinav Agarwal’s mother. Agarwal was at the CBSE offices on Friday to get his marks in Economics scrutinised. And, was worried about if the scores will be back before admissions at various universities close.

Pulkit Daga, another student who had applied to get his Economics scores re-evaluated said though he had applied to get 14 questions scrutinised by filling up two forms, officials at the office had told him that they were still not sure if this could be done.

“The official who received my application said that they had not received any notification about any change in policy yet. They have received my application, but said they will have to check if it can be entertained. I have already spent Rs 500 for verification, Rs 700 to get a copy of my answer booklet and now Rs 1,400 for re-evaluation. But I am not even sure if this will make a difference,” said Daga.

Another student, who wished to remain anonymous, said that he had only applied for re-evaluation in one subject, as he had not applied for verification and requested for photocopies of any of his other papers.

The prevailing confusion gets exacerbated as Friday was also the last day to apply for scrutiny of marks.

“Every time the court gives an order, CBSE implements it in a restricted manner... In the light of the new orders, children should be given more time to apply. The notification should be amended, saying that kids can apply by this date for full re-evaluation,” said Ashok Pandey, the principal of Ahlcon International School.

CBSE spokesperson, Rama Sharma, said: “The board will comply with the orders of the honourable High Court of Delhi, passed in respect of scrutiny of cases.”

However, CBSE offered no specific reactions to the allegations made by the students.