Knowledge
After surviving cancer can she survive CBSE rules?
Inspite of appearing for an Improvement of Performance examination after missing exam due to illness, the CBSE Board marked yhe cancer survivor marked absent. The MP High court has ordered the CBSE board to release the result citing that they were getting hyper technical, while the Board says she wa
The decision to declare the result of a cancer survivor, a class X student from Gwalior has resulted in a stalemate between the MP High Court and the CBSE board.
Even after the Madhya Pradesh high court directed it to do so, the CBSE is yet to declare the result of Ronak Shivhare, a student of Kendriya Vidyalaya who was undergoing treatment for non-Hodgkin lymphoma and could not appear for her SA-II examination conducted in March 2015, but appeared for the Eligible for Improvement of Performance examination in July 2015.
The board did not declare her result, saying that she had been marked absent and was ineligible for the July examination. After an ordeal lasting months, the family moved the HC’s Gwalior bench which ruled that the board must declare her result. Calling the board’s stand “hyper-technical”, the court said she had no option but to undergo chemotherapy for survival and by “no stretch of imagination can be termed a case of absenteeism.’’ Justice Rohit Arya observed that the school allowed her to appear in the examination, but the board’s decision not to declare her result by treating her absent was “nothing but a travesty of justice”.
While directing the board to declare her result based on marks obtained in the SA – 1 exam held in Oct 2014 and ELPO conducted in July 2015, the judge clarified that the order should not be treated as a precedent because it was passed in peculiar circumstances and considering peculiar facts of the case.
“Initially, we avoided moving the court because it would have added to the delay. Now even after the court’s order, the board has not declared her result. We are at our wits’ end,’’ she said.
“We would prefer an appeal into the matter as the court has employed the term ‘hyper-technicality’ in its order while we were only following the rulebook,” CBSE’s Ajmer region director Kamal Pathak, said. “To go ahead with the appeal, we are currently awaiting a confirmation from the head office,” he said, adding that they have also replied to the NHRC notice.