Supreme Court dismisses plea seeking CBI probe into CBSE paper leak, decision to conduct re-examination

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Tuesday dismissed a plea seeking a CBI probe into the CBSE paper leak case and the Board’s order to conduct re-examination. The petition alleged that the CBSE gave the order to protect the “real culprits” within the body and demanded that it be quashed, but a bench of justices SA Bobde and L Nageswara Rao said that the court would not like to the interfere with the conduct of the re-examination. [caption id=“attachment_4443121” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] File image of Supreme Court. Reuters[/caption] “We cannot interfere with the decision of CBSE. On this very ground this petition stands dismissed,” the bench said, noting the top court had earlier dismissed similar prayers. The counsel appearing for petitioner social activist Sanjoy Sachdev said that the CBSE is not a statutory authority and it had no authority to conduct the re-examination. The CBSE had on 25 April conducted the re-examination of the economics paper of class 12 across the country in wake of question paper leak. The plea filed by Sachdev also sought that the results of the students who have already appeared in the test “in good faith and trust” be declared. The petition sought to strike down the Central Board of Secondary Education’s (CBSE) order to conduct the re-examination of the class 12 economics paper which was allegedly leaked last month. “Order an enquiry by the Central Bureau of Investigations to take charge of all the cases of leakage from police of various states in order to the fix the criminal liability of the respondent no.1 to 4 (Centre, CBSE, Controller of examination of the Board and the Director of CBSE) and nexus involved,” the plea said. “This order (re-examination order) appears to have been issued in order to save the skin of real culprits within the central board of secondary education or their subordinates or affiliates,” the plea added. The petition said that the re-examination order was bad in law and against the principles of law of natural justice as it was taken without the students being heard. It said the order penalises the innocent and harmless students without a fault of theirs. “No authority or the respondents ever gave any chance of hearing the matter to lakhs of students from all over India,” the plea said. Sachdev, in his plea, alleged that the action of the Respondents (Centre and CBSE) has put a black scar on the lives of innocent and harmless students, majority of whom are minors, as being convicts in paper leakage, which is totally in contrast to the law of natural justice. “If the majority of these minor students have not committed any offence or crime, then why are they being treated like that and being forced to undergo re-examination,” the plea said. It also suggested that the affected students and their parents should have been given ample opportunity to appear before competent authorities in person and state truthfully in the matter, but that was not done. Amid widespread outrage over the paper leak issue, the CBSE had on 30 March said that the re-examination of CBSE’s Class 12 economics paper will be held on 25 April. The Delhi Police had registered separate cases on 27 March and 28 March, respectively, to probe the leak of the Class 12 economics paper and Class 10 mathematics paper, following a complaint by the regional director of the CBSE. On 4 April, the apex court had dismissed a batch of pleas which challenged the decision of the CBSE to conduct the re-examination of economics paper of Class 12, saying it was the discretion of the Board.