Srinagar- The High Court of J&K and Ladakh has directed Kashmir University to pay Rs 1 Lakh to a student as damages for “illegality and arbitrariness” in evaluating his English paper of B.A. 5th Semester Examination for the Session 2017- 18.
As per the student’s plea, after declaration of the results, he was shown to have failed in General English Paper having secured 27 marks as against 38 pass marks. Thereafter he obtained xerox copy of his answer sheet from University and found that one of the questions of the answer sheet had not been evaluated.
The student thereafter applied for re-evaluation and was subsequently shown to have secured 40 marks. However, the University scaled down the 40 marks to 34 marks on the basis of a rule and in the process changed the student’s result for the paper from pass to fail yet again.
In response to the plea, the University admitted that the student secured 40 marks upon re-evaluation but would contend marks were slashed down to 34 marks on application of “Statute 10 of the University pertaining to the re-evaluation of answer scripts.”
“A bare perusal of the ….Statute would manifestly tend to show that same did not in any manner apply to the case of the petitioner(student) having regard to the issue pertaining to the paper in question, be it the unamended or amended statute, in that, the respondents (university) admittedly have applied the Statute to the case of the petitioner arbitrarily and illegally and in the process have acted unreasonably and unfairly having resulted into substantial and grave prejudice to the petitioner by subjecting him to reappear in the examination afresh in the paper in question”, a bench of Justice Javed Iqbal Wani said.
“Here it is significant to understand the meaning of expressions, ‘Reevaluation’ and ‘Re-checking’ pertaining to academic matters,” the court said, underlining that ‘Reevaluation’ is said to be process of reassessing or re-evaluating an examination answer script or is an academic assessment to determine if there were any errors or discrepancies in the original evaluation and involves a detailed review of the answers provided by the student and the marks allocated to each answer. ‘Re-checking’, the court said, is said to mean to recheck something again involving a process of removal of errors or discrepancies in marking missed points or any other errors/discrepancies that may have affected the original grade.
“Having regard to the aforesaid facts and circumstances, the mindless action of the respondents (university) for having applied the statute supra wrongly to the case of the petitioner (student) pertaining to the paper in question inasmuch as compelling the petitioner to reappear in the examination again disregarding the marks secured by the petitioner in the paper in question after re-evaluation / re-checking is apparent,” the court said, adding, “the petitioner thus cannot be left remediless and the very grounds noticed in the preceding paragraphs, therefore, necessitates that the petitioner be compensated by payment of damages in Public Law.”
Subsequently, the court disposed of the plea by directing University to pay an amount of Rupees One lakh to the student as damages within a period of four weeks “failing which the amount would carry an interest @ 6% per annum apart from any other legal remedy as may be available to the petitioner.”
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