The Telangana High Court on Tuesday took up a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) over the errors in the results of the Intermediate examinations that were announced last week and called it a 'grave disaster'. The court directed officials of the state government to file a detailed report by Monday, with a timeline for re-evaluation of the exam papers of all three lakh students who had failed.
The court was hearing a petition filed by Balala Hakkula Sangham (BHS), an NGO working for child rights, led by activist Achyuta Rao.
“Why should the students come up with an application for re-evaluation when it’s the mistake of the board. It's a grave disaster, hence let the state pool its machinery, work overtime and solve this issue. After all the future of our young students is at stake. It’s the responsibility of the state government to win the confidence of the citizens," the bench was quoted as saying.
Speaking to TNM, Rao said that the PIL demanded that a thorough investigation be conducted into the fiasco and the re-evaluation of papers be free. The activist also demanded an ex-gratia for the families of students who had killed themselves since the results were announced.
Tension prevailed at the Telangana State Board of Intermediate Education (TSBIE) in Hyderabad for yet another day on Tuesday as students continued their protest over the errors in intermediate examination results. Dozens of students belonging to various groups were detained as they tried to stage sit-in in front of TBIE office in Nampally in the heart of the city.
Large number of policemen were deployed at the office, which remained out of bounds for students seeking redressal of their grievances. They remained clueless on applying for re-valuation of the answer sheets as they were not allowed to enter the board office. Students complained that they could not even apply online as the board's website was not functioning.
A total of 9 lakh students had appeared in the intermediate exams held in February-March. The results, announced last Thursday, led to utter chaos. Many bright students who did well in the first year failed in the second year. Most of them were shocked as they were awarded zero, one or two marks. One more issue was that some students who appeared for their exam claimed that they were marked as 'absent' or 'fail' in their final results.
TSBIE Secretary A. Ashok has admitted that there were some lapses in declaring the results. He, however, assured students that the discrepancies would be rectified. The state government has also ordered an inquiry into the alleged lapses in the system deployed by Globarena Technologies, whose services were hired by TBIE to conduct the exams.
IANS inputs