SC's notice to CBSE for charging fees for answer-sheet copies
The Supreme Court has issued a notice to the CBSE on a plea seeking contempt action against the board for allegedly "disobeying" the top court's order and charging exorbitant fees of up to Rs. 1,200 from students for obtaining copies of evaluated answer-sheets. A bench of Justices Ranjan Gogoi, Navin Sinha, and KM Joseph asked CBSE to respond within six weeks. Here's more.
The contempt plea has alleged that CBSE has willfully disobeyed the directions of the apex court, which had, in 2016, said the students have the fundamental and legal right to access their evaluated answer sheets under RTI Act. CBSE had published a notification prescribing fee of Rs. 1,000 and Rs. 1,200 for students of Classes 10th and 12th respectively to obtain evaluated answer sheets.
The petition claimed that fee prescribed under 2012 RTI Rules should be charged from students for obtaining answer sheets. It sought setting aside of CBSE notification prescribing fee of Rs. 1,000 and Rs. 1,200 for obtaining answer sheet copies. It also sought a direction to CBSE to provide copies of evaluated answer sheets to examinees only as per provisions of the RTI Act, 2005.
