Point of Law: Prescribing the academic standards falls exclusively in the domain of special bodies like the Senate, Board of Governors and Syndicate etc. The court would normally not interfere with such prescribed standards and especially when they are intended to improve the academic standards in their respective institutes. The scope of judicial review in such matters would be limited

JUDGMENT :

N.V. ANJARIA, J.

1. The petitioner who is the student in the 12th standard general stream, has invoked the jurisdiction of this Court under Article 226 of the Constitution by filing this petition through his father and natural guardian.

1.1 The grievance of the petitioner is in respect of the criteria and formula envisaged by respondent No. 2-Gujarat Secondary and Higher Secondary Education Board for preparing the result of the students studying in 12th standard for the Academic Year 2020-21, as reflected in the communication-cum-circular dated 19th June, 2021. The 12th standard examinations was not conducted in the wake of waive of COVID-19 pandemic, the decision was taken to cancel the already declared examinations. Therefore the manner and criteria of calculating the marks to pass out the students in the 12th standard for the purpose of declaring their result sans examinations were formulated.

2. What the petitioner has prayed is to direct respondent No. 2-Gujarat Secondary and Higher Secondary Education Board (hereinafter referred to as ‘the GSHSE Board’) to modify the Notification/Circular dated 19th June, 2021 to the extent that for the purpose of calculation of marks of the main subjects for standard 12 commerce, that is, subjects of Elements of Accounting and Statistics, the marks of subject Mathematics obtained by the students in the 10th standard only should be taken into consideration. The second prayer is on the same lines seeking modification of the said Notification to the extent that for calculation of marks of the main subjects for 12th standard commerce like Organisation of Commerce and Secretarial Practice, marks of subject Mathematics obtained by the students should be taken into consideration along with other subjects of 10th standard.

2.1 The petitioner has made alternative prayer to direct respondent No. 2-GSHSE Board to follow the rules and the manner prescribed by the Central Board of Secondary Education, that is “average theory components of best three performing subjects out of six main subjects of 10th standard” praying further that such formula should be applied and marks should accordingly be taken into consideration for preparation of final mark-sheet for any stream of 12th standard.

3. The petitioner has put forth his case stating that as the 12th standard examination was not held in view of the spread of pandemic, respondent-State and GSHSE Board came out with aforementioned Notification dated 19th June, 2021 prescribing therein the Rules, formula and the manner for calculation of marks of the students in the different streams of 12th standard. As could be gathered from the said impugned Notification, the formula laid down for preparation of final mark-sheet of the students was thus: (a) Maximum 50 Marks will be considered from standard 10 (Considering the formula @ rate of 71.43% of 70 Marks in particular subject); (b) Maximum 25 Marks will be considered from standard 11 (Considering the formula as 50% of Average of marks obtained in First Term (50 marks) and Second Term (50 Marks)); (c) Maximum 25 Marks will be considered from standard 12 (Considering the formula of 20% of marks obtained during Academic Year 2020-21 of First Term (100 Marks) and during the said year and exam conducted subject wise (25 marks) thus total 20% of 125 marks).

3.1 It is the further case of the petitioner that in view of the above formula, the respondent-Board further divided subjects of 10th standard, 11th standard and 12th standard in different groups. Group 1, 2 and 3 were devised for science stream and Group 1, 2, 3 and 4 came to be determined for other stream. The marks were classified based on such groups as to which subject of 10th standard would be taken into consideration for giving marks in the corresponding subject of 12th standard and to prepare mark-sheet for 12th standard on such footing.

3.2 The subjects of 10th standard to be treated as main corresponding to the main subjects in the 12th standard i