Yogendra Prasad Lall vs Bihar School Examination Board

S.C. Misra, C.J. and B.D. Singh, J.—The petitioner sat at the Annual Secondary School Examination 1968 of the Bihar School Examination Board and was declared to have failed because he obtained 268 marks in the aggregate, whereas under the Bihar School Examination Board Regulation 1964, which was published in the Bihar Gazette on June 7, 1967, he was required to obtain an aggregate of 27C marks. It is no doubt true that he failed also in the English papers but it is conceded by the other side that such failure has been condoned by paragraph 14 of Chapter VIII of this Regulation which was subsequently added to these Regulations.

The only question for consideration as pressed by learned Counsel for the petitioner is that in terms of paragraph 2 of Chapter VIII of these Regulations, the Examination Board should have given the petitioner credit in the making of his aggregate for marks obtained by him in the tenth paper which was Sanskrit by making a deduction of 30 marks as required under paragraph 2. The relevant sentence in paragraph 2 of the Regulation is "only marks obtained above 30 marks in the additional paper will be added to the aggregate." If that is undoubtedly, the Examination Board erred in not adding 18 marks to the aggregate obtained by the petitioner. That being done, the marks obtained by him would come to (268 + 18) 286, whereas the minimum required would be only 270. It is thus a clear case of oversight on the part of the Board.

The application is accordingly allowed and the Board is directed to declare the petitioner as having passed the Annual Secondary School Examination 1968 in terms of the directions contained herein.