In what can only be dubbed as a crass display of insensitivity, the Telangana State Board of Intermediate Education (TSBIE) in a press release, denied reports that a first-year Inter student who took her own life after she was declared 'failed' in the exams had passed.
This instance which came to light on Saturday was most damning for the BIE, whose massive bungling in valuation and processing of results allegedly led to the death of over 20 students. Insisting that Anamika Arutla had failed, the TSBIE claimed that it was a 'clerical error' which led to the re-verified paper showing that Anamika had passed.
On Saturday, the family of Anamika Arutla said that she had ended her life, distressed over failing in Telugu subject by 20 marks. However, more than a month after her death, the re-verified answer script, which was uploaded online by the TSBIE, showed that she had scored 48 in the subject.
After this, Anamika's family demanded strict action against officials of the TSBIE and held a press meet on Saturday. The family of the student told TNM that they will be filing a case against the TSBIE for lying and negligence.
However, in a bizarre defence late on Saturday, the TSBIE denied the allegations and said that the re-verification of Anamika's Telugu paper only resulted in the marks changing from 20 to 21.
"The allegations made by Arutla Udaya that her sister Anamika killed herself because of TSBIE is not correct and baseless," the Board said.
"Telugu subject experts have verified the answer script of late Arutla Anamika in the Board. After re-verification, she secured 21 marks, i.e, only 1 mark was enhanced. But her marks were wrongly uploaded as 48 instead of 21 because of clerical mistake in the spot valuation camp," the statement added.
The TSBIE also released her 24-page answer booklet, which was re-verified.
"The TSBIE constituted a committee to enquire the issue and the error committed by the concerned person in uploading the marks wrongly. the TSBIE will initiate action against the person responsible for this error after conducting a detailed enquiry," the Board added.
The TSBIE had declared the results of Intermediate (the state government equivalent of Classes 11 and 12) examinations on April 18. Out of 9.43 lakh students who appeared in the exams, 5.6 lakh had cleared it. After the announcement of results, several errors by the authorities in the evaluation of answer scripts and processing the results came to light, triggering a huge public outcry.
The spate of students killing themselves over failure in these exams kicked up a storm with opposition parties and student bodies taking to the streets demanding justice to the students.
After the matter reached the Telangana High Court, Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao on April 24 announced free re-verification of answer sheets of all students who failed.
On May 27, the TSBIE announced the results of the re-verified answer scripts of over 3.82 lakh students who had failed to obtain passing marks. Following this process, 1,137 students, who were earlier declared "failed", cleared the exams.
With IANS inputs