SC judges have maintained spirit of law by delivering an excellent decision. The judgement will help students who have been failed for no fault of theirs. But rich and influential people may misuse this provision.

UNDER THE Right to Information (RTI) Act, the Supreme Court said that students have the right to inspect and photocopy their answer sheets after their evaluation post examination conducted by boards, universities, institutions and public service commissions. The apex court bench of Justice R.V. Raveendran and Justice A.K. Patnaik pronounced its verdict and upheld the Calcutta High Court judgement. Judges said that evaluated answer sheets come under definition of ‘information’ and it restated the duty of public authority under transparency law. This was the case of Pritam Rooj, student of Presidency College, who was fighting for re-evaluation of his answer sheets since March 28, 2008, and he applied to inspect his marks under RTI but his plea was rejected by high court.

“I am satisfied with Supreme Court verdict, when we applied for re-evaluation under school laws, mostly time our application get rejected without any reason,” said XIth standard student who applied for reassessment in class Xth.

“RTI is suppose for all nitizens, I agree with landmark ruling,” added another student.

The Supreme Court verdict is welcome by all set of society and it increases more faith in our judiciary system, which roughly consider bunch of corrupt magistrates.

The judges have maintained spirit of law by delivering an excellent decision. It helps students who are failed or for no fault of theirs have been failed. Though some rich and influential people may misuse it. Students must be given a chance to clear their doubts by re-evaluating their marks and answers. Sometimes students think that they have got fewer marks due to bad reputation or impression, etc. It effects relations between teachers and students forever.

The education community is not too happy about the judgement. “It will increase only burden to institution,” said college professor. “It looks like that Supreme Court has no faith on us, we used our best ability to gives marks,” added another professor angrily.

I consider Supreme Court judgment is right in the view of transparency, but there are pros and cons also. Students will be able to raise more questions about their answer sheets through RTI, and educational institutions may find it difficult to accurately verify it. In some cases, results may be delayed as system needs to be on track.