Patna: The Patna High Court has imposed a fine of ₹5 lakh on the Bihar School Examination Board (BSEB) for not issuing the original certificate of matriculation to a girl, who had passed the exam six years ago.
A single bench of Justice Sanjeev Prakash Sharma imposed the fine after hearing a writ petition of Saraswati Kumari, a student of Adarsh Higher Secondary School, Sirdala, of Nawada district.
The petitioner had passed the matriculation examination from the Nawada-based school in the first division six years ago, but she was not issued the certificate by the BSEB. She had repeatedly approach the BSEB for issuing the original certificate.
Advocate of Saraswati Kumari informed the court that his petitioner neither received any acknowledgement or reply from the BSEB till date despite repeated attempts. “Nor did she get any assurance from the authorities to resolve her issues. So she decided to approach the High Court. The BSEB issued original certificated only after the Patna High Court sought a reply from the board,” the lawyer appearing for Saraswati Kumari said.
Dismissing the pleas of BSEB, the bench observed that the court could not turn a blind eye to the ordeal of the girl and time wasted on getting the original certificate for no fault of hers.
The petitioner’s lawyer said that the Court ordered that the BSEB shall pay the fine as compensation to the student as she suffered a lot due to callous attitude of the board officials.
BSEB has history of penalty
In 2017 also, the Patna High Court had asked the BSEB to pay a fine of ₹5 lakh for flunking a meritorious girl in the matriculation examination. The BSEB admitted that the answer sheets of the girl student, Priyanka Singh, were not evaluated properly earlier, as the result of which she got poor marks in Sanskrit and Science.
The High Court had slapped a similar amount of fine (₹5 lakh) on the BSEB in the year 2018 for leaving the matriculation copy of Bhavya Kumar of Begusari unevaluated. Last year also, the High Court had reprimanded the BSEB for its casual approach towards resolving the students’ issues.
