Calcutta High Court rescues student’s career after school’s ‘namesake’ blunder nearly bars him from board examination

The court added that not allowing the petitioner to participate in the examination for no fault of his own will cause serious injustice to him.

Findings

• The petitioner has a namesake in his class, and his namesake failed to qualify for the test examination.
• Despite the same, the school inadvertently forwarded the details of the namesake of the petitioner to the WBBSE for enrolment and issuance of the admit card.
• There has been a serious lapse on the part of the school in forwarding proper details of the candidates eligible to participate in the Madhyamik examination.
• The career of a young student has been jeopardised because of the irresponsible act of the school authority.
• The school forwarded the details of a candidate who was unsuccessful in the test examination and could not be permitted to appear in the Madhyamik examination.
• The school ought to have forwarded the details of the petitioner, as he was successful in the test examination and eligible to sit for the examination.
• Madhyamik examination is the first board examination that a student takes, and the same bears extreme importance in the future career of a student.
• The board will face immense difficulties if, at the last moment, direction is passed for enrolling the candidate and issuing the admit card in his favour, but as it has been mentioned above, it is only in the best interest of the student that the court is minded to pass this order.
• The West WBBSE is directed to enroll the candidate and to issue an admit card in favour of the petitioner incorporating proper details so that he can sit for the Madhyamik examination, scheduled to start from February 2.
• It will be open for the WBBSE to take necessary disciplinary action against the erring officer of the school so that similar lapses do not take place in the future, causing inconvenience to the candidate and the board.

Background

• The petitioner, a minor represented by his mother, approached the court after the school failed to forward his details to the board despite him passing the qualifying test examination.
• According to the petitioner, the school inadvertently forwarded the details of a namesake classmate who had actually failed the test.
• Consequently, the board issued an admit card for the unsuccessful namesake while leaving the petitioner without one.
• Counsel for the school, advocate Ravi Kumar Dubey, admitted the mistake and said that by the time they attempted to rectify the error, the WBBSE online portal for corrections had already closed.
• Appearing for the board, advocates Koyeli Bhattacharyya, Bibek Dutta, and Manas Bhattacharyya opposed the student’s plea and submitted that the repeated opportunities were granted by the board to the school as well as the participating candidates to update and correct in the dedicated portal all the information required for the purpose of appearing in the Madhyamik examination.
• They further argued that there was no requirement for the school to visit the office of the board to make the necessary correction after the time for correction ended.
• It was the duty of the school to make necessary corrections online in the portal, which was opened by the board.
• The board submitted that disciplinary action ought to be taken against the Head of the Institution for the error that he has committed.
• The board said that it will face various problems if the prayer of the petitioner is allowed at such a late stage.