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The Central Board of Secondary Education v. T.K. Rangarajan

Civil Appeal · 2018 INSC 1091Decided 22 Nov 2018
Civil Appeal No. 11230 of 2018
Justice S.A. Bobde · Justice L. Nageswara Rao

Background

Students who took the 2018 NEET-UG medical entrance exam in Tamil complained that 49 questions were mistranslated from English, causing confusion. The Madras High Court agreed and ordered that all roughly 24,000 students who took the exam in Tamil be given 4 grace marks per flawed question (196 marks total), regardless of how they actually answered those questions. CBSE and other affected students appealed to the Supreme Court, arguing this blanket award was unfair and skewed the merit list.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court found that while some translation errors did occur, students had been expressly instructed (on the question paper and hall ticket) to refer to the English version in case of any ambiguity, and the errors were the kind that could reasonably have been spotted and resolved that way. The Court held that awarding full marks to every Tamil-medium candidate for all 49 questions regardless of whether they even attempted or answered those questions was "manifestly arbitrary," since it let some students vault far ahead of higher-scoring peers purely by virtue of language choice rather than merit. It set aside the Madras High Court's order and directed that from 2019-20 the exam be conducted by the National Testing Agency with an improved, cross-checked translation process, with the English version remaining authoritative in case of ambiguity.

Lesson Learnt

Courts will intervene to correct unfairness in examinations, but the remedy must be proportionate and tied to actual harm (e.g., re-evaluating specific flawed questions) rather than a blanket, unverified bonus that itself creates a new unfair advantage for an entire group.

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

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