The Supreme Court has agreed to hear petitions challenging the Central Board of Secondary Education’s (CBSE) assessment scheme for Class XII students in seven Gulf countries whose board examinations were cancelled due to the Iran–US conflict.

A Bench of Justices K V Viswanathan and Alok Aradhe on Wednesday issued notices to the Centre and the CBSE on petitions filed by 30 regular students and a separate plea by a private candidate. The matter has been listed for hearing on July 14.

The petitioners have challenged the CBSE’s March 27 assessment scheme for regular students and the June 21 policy for private candidates. They have sought a fair and transparent evaluation process and have also requested that the CBSE conduct special board and improvement examinations, allowing students to retain the better of the two results.

The Centre had earlier informed the court that the CBSE had introduced a separate evaluation policy for private candidates, whose schools could not provide internal assessment records. Under the revised policy, marks for subjects in which examinations were cancelled will be calculated using 40 per cent of Class X theory marks and 60 per cent of marks obtained in the candidate’s last attempted Class XII board examination.

The Class XII board examinations were cancelled in Bahrain, Iran, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE following the conflict in West Asia.

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