Times of India: Patna: Thursday, August 30, 2018.
The Patna high court
(HC) on Wednesday slapped a cost of Rs 5 lakh on the Bihar School Examination
Board (BSEB) after it found that an examinee ended up as the second topper of
the matriculation examination in 2017 because the answer to a 2-mark question in
her Hindi answer book had been left unevaluated.
Begusarai resident
Bhavya Kumari had to fight her case in the HC. It was at the HC’s behest that
her answer book was re-evaluated and she was awarded 1 mark for that particular
answer. The Simultala residential school student’s total score 465/500 has now
equalled that of the matriculation topper of 2017.
Petitioner’s counsel
Ratan Kumar said his client had under the RTI Act applied to the BSEB for the
xerox copies of her answer sheets of Hindi, Social Science and Sanskrit in July
after the declaration of the results last year as she felt she deserved more
marks in these papers. “The xerox copies were given to her in March this year
after which we moved the HC,” the counsel said.
It was submitted before
the HC that three answers in Hindi and one each in Social Science and Sanskrit
papers were left unevaluated. The five questions were of total six marks.
“The BSEB, in its reply
to the HC, accepted only one unevaluated answer,” the counsel said.
The bench of Justice
Chakradhari Sharan Singh directed the BSEB to revise Bhavya’s result within two
weeks. It also ordered that the Rs 5 lakh to be paid by the BSEB be given to
the Simultala residential school for purchasing books and computers and
developing other infrastructure for its students.
The court also ordered
the BSEB to upload the answer sheets of top ten scorers of matriculation and
Intermediate examinations to its website soon after the declaration of the
results every year.
The same bench had earlier
also fined the BSEB for wrongly flunking students. On October 18 last year, it
slapped a cost of Rs 5 lakh on the BSEB for failing matriculation examinee
Priyanka Singh.
Priyanka had been given
nine out of 100 marks in Sanskrit and 29 out of 80 in Science. After an inquiry
made by the BSEB on the HC’s order, she scored 80 in Sanskrit and 61 in
Science.
On August 2 this year,
Justice Singh again slapped a cost of Rs 1 lakh on the BSEB for failing Class
XII examinee Saurabh Kumar last year. He was awarded two out of 50 marks in
Alternative English and that too after scrutiny of the answer sheet. Later,
however, the BSEB accepted before the HC that Saurabh had actually scored 32
and had been declared “fail” due to a clerical error.
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