SHILLONG: A student of St Anthony’s Higher Secondary School whose name was in the ninth position on the list of successful candidates in the SSLC examination held last year became the joint second rank holder thanks to the intervention of the High Court of Meghalaya.
The mother of Adrain Lara Nongbri had filed a petition in the court as a last resort after MBoSE failed to rectify the rank of the student.
As the case came up for hearing on Wednesday, Judge S.R Sen ruled in favour of the student.
There was a mix-up in the allotment of internal marks to the student by St. Anthony’s Higher Secondary School and initially MBoSE had expressed its inability to rectify the rank as it would go against the regulations of the Board.
The format for SSLC examination as prescribed by MBoSE is that examinations for each subject will be held for a total of 100 marks out of which 20 marks are to be allotted to candidates on the basis of internal assessment and the remaining 80 marks are to be allotted on the basis of the candidates’ performance in the external examinations.
According to the petitioner represented by counsel K.C Gautam, Nongbri had regularly topped the class and the family, teachers and others who were known to him were expecting that he would excel in the examination.
After the result was declared, Nongbri scored 559 out of a total of 600 and thus stood 9th in order of merit.
However, the result came as a shock to the student and his family and some of the teachers of the school who were expecting Nongbri to feature in the list of top 3 meritorious students.
According to the petitioner, what surprised her was discrepancy in the internal assessment marks. The issue was brought to the notice of the principal of St Anthony’s Higher Secondary School and after inquiry it was revealed that the marks obtained by another student having the same first name was inadvertently assigned against the roll number of Nongbri whose total marks came down.
The school later issued a letter to the Executive Chairman, MBoSE, clarifying the error. The letter was received by the Executive Chairman who made an internal note on the letter stating that this appears to be a case of error committed by the concerned school and upon rectification of this error a corrigendum needs to be issued indicating the correct rank of Nongbri.
MBoSE, however, did not make any rectification in the ranking of candidates by publication of corrigendum. On the contrary, the education board stated that no change in the ranking of candidate or correction in the internal marks would be made as it is contrary to its regulations.
As per the petition, Nongbri has been a victim of omissions on the part of the respondents which has cost him his legitimate standing on the list of successful candidates in SSLC and other academic losses in terms of opportunities and incentives provided to students who top the list in SSLC examinations conducted by boards across the country.
The counsel for MBoSE, L. Khyriem, has filed an affidavit before the court wherein it was stated through an order on May 9 that the Board has rectified the rank of the student. Earlier, through an affidavit, St Anthony’s Higher Secondary School had admitted its mistake.
