Chennai: A bright XI standard girl of a city school suffered shock and depression on being diagnosed as diabetic and fared badly in her exams, resulting in the school declaring her as detained. Luckily for her, the Madras high court, taking a humane approach to mitigate the girl’s misery, recently ordered the CBSE school to allow her to take re-exam in the three subjects she had failed in even though the Board regulations do not permit that.
Senior counsel Sathish Parasaran, appearing for Padma Seshadri Bala Bhavan, KK Nagar, told the court that the student had no right to seek re-exam in the three failed subjects as the CBSE regulations do not permit it. However, she could be allowed to do so provided she agreed to shift to another school even if she clears all the three subjects in the re-exam as otherwise the students who have already taken the transfer-certificate with remarks ‘detained’ would be discriminated against, the counsel submitted.
Counsel for the student petitioner — she was represented by her father since she was a minor — gave an undertaking she would not insist on continuing at the PSBB after passing in the three subjects, and would happily shift to another institution.
Recording the submission, Justice S. Vaidyanathan directed the school to permit the girl to take the re-exams in Physics on May 21 (Monday), Chemistry (May 23) and Maths (May 25). However, he made it clear that she would get her transfer-certificate with ‘detained’ stamped on it if she fails even in one of the subjects. Further, the relief now granted was only to provide with her with yet another chance to clear the XI standard but she must move on to another school, "as CBSE regulations/guidelines are against the petitioner".
The girl took her Physics exam on Monday and is preparing hard for the Chemistry and Maths papers on Wednesday and Friday respectively. She is hopeful of clearing all the three papers and justify the extraordinary kindness showed to her by the court.
The court, obviously, was touched by the girl’s tale of how her consistently bright academic scores-she had passed X std with 80 per cent marks and opted for the science stream--had collapsed after she fell ill with viral fever early this year. She took her XI class physics practical exam on February 21 but her health worsened and she was hospitalised on March 2.
The girl felt shattered when the doctors diagnosed her as diabetic but managed to take the annual exams after counselling. On March 29, the school told the parents that she had failed in maths, physics and chemistry. She could either switch from science stream to commerce and continue at PSBB or leave the school for another with ‘detained’ stamped in the transfer-certificate, they were told.
As the school would not furnish the girl’s evaluated answer sheets and refused to hold re-exams in the three subjects if she had really scored low, she moved the high court for relief.
