In order to give a fair chance to students with learning disabilities, the Bombay High Court recently gave orders to Maharashtra State Board of Secondary and Higher Secondary Education to pass a girl who was detained in SSC for her failure to obtain minimum marks.
As per reports, around 17.3 lakh students have appeared in the Class 10 board examination this year from all over the state, out of this more than 3.2 lakh students were from the Mumbai division.
Moreover, girls in the state outshone boys with an overall pass percentage of 91.41 in the SSC results. Boys, on the other hand, have registered a pass percentage of 87.98.
Following are the key notes of the issue:
- Bhamisha Singh, who appeared for SSC examination passed in all the subjects but could not get minimum passing marks in Information and Communication Technology.
- Earlier, Bhamisha Singh requested the board to pass her, but her plea was rejected, saying that it did not have powers to extend this facility in SSC exam.
- After thinking that some kind of sympathy should be extended towards them, the court asked the Board to pass her in view of the State's policy which aims to extend help to students with special needs or learning disability.
In a recent order passed by the court, the Bench headed by Justices S C Dharmadhikari and Dr Shalini Phansalkar Joshi said, "Having perused even the reply of the Board, we are of the opinion that in the facts and circumstances and which are peculiar to this case, the Board could have condoned the failure of the petitioner in the optional subject."
More on orders:
- Moreover, the judges observed that, "The petitioner's performance in other subjects and which are compulsory cannot be said to be poor or below standards given her learning disability. She has performed satisfactorily in the other papers."
- "True, it is that this is a Board examination and which is for all students across the State. The (government) scheme cannot be extended and does not necessarily have the application to such examinations as are conducted by the Board," the Bench added.
- "Such students are now part and parcel of the broader concept devised by the State. They (such students) are now known as "Divyang" (disabled) and have some special requirements. The scheme under the Government Resolution is extended to such students from standards 1 to 12."
- "In order to encourage them so long as performance of such students achieves minimum or near minimum standards, the expectation of the petitioner is that with some additional or grace marks she could have been declared as successful."