SECRETARY, BOARD OF SCHOOL EDUCATION vs SANDEEP KUMAR BHATT

THE Board of School Education, Haryana appeals against the order of the District Forum, Bhiwani granting marginal relief of declaring the respondent-student having passed in the English subject.

IN view of the very limited submission raised by the learned Counsel for the appellant the facts merit notice with utmost brevity. It suffices to mention that the respondent had appeared in 10 + 2 examination held by the appellant-Board in March, 1993. He was declared fail in the said examination because his marks were below the requisite number both in English and Hindi i.e. 29 and 27 marks respectively. Apprehending a patent error in the awarding of the marks the respondent made an application for the rechecking of the answer books and was informed that in case any error was detected he would be intimated thereof. Expeditious redress having not been given the complaint was filed to seek relief. In the reply filed on behalf of the appellant the plea was that on rechecking the answer book of the English subject it was found that some portion of the answer had been left unmarked by the Sub-Examiner. On the matter being referred back to him he then awarded 32 marks therein instead of the original 29. It is unnecessary to refer to the averment with regard to the Hindi Subject because the complaint was not ultimately pressed on that score before the District Forum.

It would appear that in the course of the proceedings the original answer book of the English subject was produced and there from it transpired that the total marks came to 32 and when the same was rounded of under the instructions the figure would become 33 which would give pass marks to the respondent. However, it was clarified in the course of proceedings that the Sub-Examiner had added half a mark because the case was a marginal one and had not merely rechecked and re-totalled the same. On that factual matrix the District Forum granted relief in the terms noticed at the outset.

MR. B.K. Gupta, the learned Counsel for the appellant had with great fairness stated that the appeal had been preferred primarily to establish that in the process of rechecking no revaluation can be done because these are things apart. It was the stand that without seriously pressing for upsetting the relief accorded to the respondent-student, the grey area betwixt revaluation and rechecking be clearly demarcated. Mr. Gupta has to be complimented on the fair and liberal stand taken by the Board to not press a hyper-technical issue against the respondent-consumer. However, there is a patent merit in his submission that rechecking of the answer-sheets and their revaluation are things apart which should not be intermingled or confused. It was rightly pointed out that the Board extends two distinct reliefs in this context namely one of rechecking which involves only either re-totalling or provides against any other arithmatical or clerical error and on the other hand revaluation involves an altogether different procedure to which detailed reference is not necessary because the things is somewhat obvious. Inevitably it has to be held that the process of rechecking the answer sheets has to be clearly demarcated from revaluation or reassessment thereof.

WITH the aforesaid clarification the present appeal is hereby dismissed but without any order as to costs. Appeal dismissed.