The Union government on Friday told the Supreme Court that it could not consider awarding grace marks to students who claimed that they suffered due to faulty evaluation by the Central Board of Secondary Education’s On-Screen Marking system in the Class 12 examination, The Hindu reported.

Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, appearing before a bench headed by Chief Justice Surya Kant, said that a one-week window had been opened for re-evaluation and 1.68 lakh students had applied for changes in their scores.

“Now, they [petitioners] are asking for grace marks, that is not possible,” Mehta said, according to The Hindu.

However, advocate Laxmikant Matadan Shukla, appearing for petitioner Rakesh Binjola, contended that one week was too short a duration, as the number of students who required re-evaluation was very large.

Shukla said that students who suffered because of faulty evaluation went on to clear entrance examinations, but were stuck because they did not get the minimum qualifying marks in the Class 12 exam, The Hindu reported.

Mehta maintained that while the Centre did not consider the litigation to be an adversarial one, the petitioners appeared to have missed the chance when the one-week window for re-evaluation was open.

The Supreme Court asked the Union government to file an affidavit giving details about remedial measures taken after irregularities were found in the On-Screen Marking process. It also told the petitioner to file a rejoinder listing out cases where candidates seeking re-evaluation could not access the portal due to infrastructural inadequacies, the newspaper reported.

Edited by Neerad Pandharipande.

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