Cuttack: The Orissa High Court Tuesday began suo motu ‘contempt of court’ proceedings against Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) Joint Secretary (academic) Manoj Srivastava for allegedly making scurrilous remarks over the court’s order in connection with the Class-XII results goof-up.
Issuing a notice to Srivastava, Justice Biswanath Rath asked the officer to file his reply by July 3 as to why contempt proceedings should not be initiated against him for “making scurrilous remarks over the court’s order.” The HC initiated contempt proceedings against Srivastava by taking suo motu cognisance of the issue.
Srivastava allegedly had issued a press statement in New Delhi questioning the propriety of an order issued by Justice Rath directing the CBSE to reevaluate the answer sheets of aggrieved Class-XII students. Srivastava had even stated that the court order was made for a “wrong submission” by the CBSE counsel in the vacation bench of the court.
On going to the press and insulting the court verdict, Justice Rath observed: “Some officers are becoming too arrogant while dealing with court orders.”
The HC also directed the CBSE to submit the answer sheets of 18 students, who had applied for reevaluation by Wednesday noon. The court, in its June 7 order, had directed the CBSE to reevaluate the answer sheets of 18 students and publish the fresh results at the earliest.
The court pronounced the order while dealing with a batch of cases filed in connection with the discrepancies in CBSE Class-XII results. Justice Rath posted the next hearing on the case to Wednesday.
At least 18 students had approached the High Court alleging discrepancies in the marks awarded to them in certain papers. Engaging experts, the board re-evaluated the papers to find out that marks awarded initially changed in at least 18 of the 51 papers re-evaluated.
The High Court subsequently ordered reevaluation of answer sheets of a batch of another 159 aggrieved students, whose results had also been published in May this year. Expressing displeasure over the happenings in the CBSE and observing that the board was playing with the future of students, the High Court said: “There is an apparent mistake in the evaluation process of the CBSE and the students have a genuine grievance.”
Meanwhile, the association of parents stuck to its earlier stance of moving the Supreme Court if their grievances are not properly addressed.
