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Tanvi Sarwal v. Central Board of Secondary Education

Writ Petition (Civil) · Neutral citation not assigned (Writ Petition (Civil) No. 298 of 2015)Decided 15 Jun 2015
Writ Petition (Civil) No. 298 of 2015
Justice R.K. Agrawal · Justice Amitava Roy

Background

The All India Pre-Medical and Pre-Dental Entrance Test 2015, conducted by the CBSE for over six lakh candidates, came under challenge after news reports and a police investigation revealed that a syndicate had transmitted 90 answer keys to select candidates during the exam in exchange for payments of Rs. 15-20 lakh. Several affected candidates, along with a social activist, filed writ petitions before the Supreme Court arguing that the exam's integrity had been irreversibly compromised and that honest candidates would be unfairly disadvantaged by the leak.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court held that the scale and nature of the malpractice, facilitated through electronic devices to benefit a specific group of candidates, had fundamentally vitiated the fairness of the examination for the entire candidate pool, not just those directly implicated. Given this irreversible taint, the Court held there was no option but to cancel the examination altogether rather than attempt a partial fix. It directed the CBSE to conduct a fresh examination within four weeks, following the same admission and counselling timeline framework used in the Court's earlier rulings, while allowing the ongoing police investigation into the leak to continue separately.

Lesson Learnt

When an examination's fairness is compromised on a scale that cannot be isolated to specific candidates, courts can order the entire test to be cancelled and re-held, even at significant logistical cost, to protect the basic right of all candidates to a fair and equal opportunity.

Official source (sci.gov.in)View Judgment (PDF)

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