The Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court on Thursday sought a response from the State to a public interest litigation petition that challenged the government’s decision to conduct public examinations for classes V and VIII.
A Division Bench of Justices M. Duraiswamy and T. Ravindran asked the Centre and the State government to file counters to the petition filed by advocate S. Louis of Madurai, who sought a direction to restrain the State from conducting public examinations for classes V and VIII.
In his petition, Mr. Louis said the State government’s decision to conduct the public examination was unwarranted. Children below the age of 14 years would be psychologically affected and failure in the examinations could result in dropouts, he added.
The Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009 was enacted with the intention of providing free and compulsory education to children up to the age of 14 years. An amendment was brought to Section 16 of the Act by the Centre. Regular examinations to classes V and VIII at the end of every academic year were made mandatory and re-examination after two months for students who failed was also brought in. Following the amendment, no other State government had come forward to conduct public examinations for classes V and VIII except the Tamil Nadu government, the petitioner pointed out.
He sought a direction to restrain the State from conducting the public examinations. The petitioner also sought a stay on the amendment to Section 16 of the Act. The case was adjourned to February 19 for the respondents to file their counters.
