Coronavirus crisis: Supreme Court refuses to cancel remaining Rajasthan Class 10 exams

The Supreme Court on Sunday dismissed a plea seeking the cancellation of remaining RBSE Class 10 board examinations slated to be held between June 29 and June 30. A 3-judge bench headed by Justice AM Khanwilkar said that because no new COVID-19 cases were reported from examination centres so far, the apex court said that it found no solid reason to interfere with the examination dates set by the state education board.

This plea was filed by Maghi Devi, a resident of Bikaner and parent of a class 10 student, against the Rajasthan HC order that allowed the Rajasthan state board to conduct examinations with necessary precautions. This plea stated that 11,86,418 students would be exposed to coronavirus if the exams were conducted as the designated exam centres were also utilised as quarantine centres.

The plea as accessed by news agency ANI said, "About 120 schools which are designated examination centres were used to quarantine people for shelter labourers in transit and that the conducting of examinations is wrong, illegal and discriminatory for the reason that it jeopardizes the health of the students undertaking the exams and this, amounting to violation of Article 21 and Article 14 of the Indian Constitution."

The 3-judge bench of the Supreme Court also said that the petition does not quote a single instance of complaint about inappropriate facilities or the possibility of students getting exposed to the coronavirus due to the breach of standard operating procedure (SOP) issued by the government to contain coronavirus outbreak.

This, however, is not the first petition seeking the cancellation of exams junked by the Supreme Court. Earlier, SC had trashed a petition seeking the cancellation of Karnataka state board exams.

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