Raising concern over the spike in the cases of coronavirus and deaths in Maharashtra, the Bombay HC on Monday asked the Maharashtra government to give its stand about conducting pending Indian School Certificate Examination (ICSE) board exams of class 10 and 12 in July.

A division bench of Chief Justice Dipankar Datta and Justice S S Shinde said the government cannot maintain an ambiguous stand, that if there are only few students opting to appear for exams, then permission would be given for it.

The ICSE board were rescheduled to be conducted from July 2 to 12 across the state after they were postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic. A resident of Arvind Tiwari then filed a petition challenging the decision of board to conduct the exams, contesting on the basis of increasing number of coronavirus cases. The petition stated that it would be appropriate to declare results on the basis of internal assessment of students.

The board had announced that it would provide an option to students to either opt to appear for pending exams in July or get scores according to their scores in internal assessments or pre-board exams. The HC had then directed the ICSE board to present its methodology about alternative grading for those students who opt not to physically appear for the exams.

On Monday, the board requested for more time to submit its methodology. The court has now directed the Maharashtra government to file an affidavit clearing its stand on the issue considering that there is a rise in the cases of coronavirus.

The court noted that the number of cases of coronavirus cases in Maharashtra is still on the rise and even the death rate is high. Petitioner Tiwari told the Bombay HC that 24 students had to be quarantined after the ICSE had conducted exams in Karnataka as one of their fathers tested positive the board had conducted exams in Karnataka.

As per the ISCE board, it has 226 schools in Maharashtra affiliated to it and 23,347 students are scheduled to appear for the Class 10 exams.

Source: India Today

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