Supreme Court turns down Karnataka govt's request for evaluation of half yearly Class 10 exams

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Tuesday turned down a plea by the Karnataka government to modify its October 21 order to allow evaluation of half yearly assessments of the examination conducted for the class 10th for academic year 2024-25. 

A bench of Justices Bela M Trivedi and Satish Chandra Sharma declined to consider an application filed by the state government, which assessment will have no bearing on the student's overall result or their chances of passing Class 10th.

The proposed half-yearly examination for Class 10th students does not possess the trappings of a public exam. While the question paper was set by the Karnataka State Examination and Assessment Board (KSEAB), it was made available to the heads of the respective institutions through their Login IDs, it said.

The state government also claimed the instant matter was against the judgments of the High Court and the only issue was the legality of board examination for Standards 5, 8, 9 and 11. That, a half yearly board examination for 10th Standard was not the subject of the present matter at all. 

Organisations For Unaided Recognised Schools, registered (Our Schools) through advocate K V Dhananjay opposed the plea saying about eight lakh children took the 10th Standard half yearly examination which has led to a mess in the State. Advocates A Velan, Dheeraj S J, Ananya Krishna and Navpreet Kaur also appeared for the petitioner.The bench declined the plea and fixed the matter for consideration on January.

On October 21, 2024, the court had restrained the Karnataka government from conducting half yearly board examinations for Classes 8, 9 and 10 or declaring the results, where exams have already been held, till further orders. The court had come down heavily upon the state government.

On March 12, 2024, the apex court had set aside an interim order of the Karnataka High Court's division bench order allowing the state government to conduct board exams for the summative assessment of students of classes 5, 8, and 9 as per the schedule. The appeal was filed by the Organisation for Unaided Recognised Schools against the March 22, judgement of the Karnataka High Court.

The High Court's division bench had permitted the state government to conduct the board exams for different classes for the academic year 2023-24, overruling the March 6 order of a single judge's bench.

The single judge of the high court had nullified the state government's decision of October 2023 to hold board exams for different classes through the KSEAB.