3 min readNew DelhiJul 21, 2026 10:30 AM IST
The Supreme Court will today hear a plea challenging the Central Board of Secondary Education’s (CBSE) March 27 assessment scheme for regular Class 12 students in Gulf countries whose board examinations were cancelled due to the Iran-US conflict.
Last week, the Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, appearing for the Centre and the CBSE, informed a Bench of Justices M M Sundresh and PB Varale that the Board would file its response to the petition. The Bench then posted the matter for hearing next week.
On July 8, the apex court had agreed to examine a petition filed by 30 regular students from Gulf countries challenging the assessment policy and had issued notices to the Centre and the CBSE. The court had directed that a copy of the petition be served on the Solicitor General.
The court is also hearing a separate plea by a Class 12 student from a Gulf country challenging the CBSE’s June 21 notification prescribing an evaluation formula for private candidates affected by the cancellation of examinations.
Counsel for the petitioners submitted that students were dissatisfied with the assessment scheme adopted by the Board.
In their plea, the 30 students have sought the quashing or modification of the March 27 assessment scheme, arguing that it is unfair and discriminatory. They have urged the court to direct the CBSE to adopt a fair, transparent and non-discriminatory evaluation mechanism.
The petition also seeks directions to the CBSE to conduct a special fresh examination and a special improvement examination for all affected students, without restricting the number of subjects they can appear for, and to allow candidates to retain the better of the two scores.
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Earlier, on June 22, the Centre informed the Supreme Court that the CBSE had framed a fresh policy for evaluating private candidates whose examinations were cancelled due to the conflict in West Asia.
Under the policy notified on June 21, marks for subjects in which examinations could not be conducted are calculated using a formula based on 40 per cent of the theory marks obtained in the Class 10 board examination and 60 per cent of the theory marks secured in the candidate’s last-attempted Class 12 board examination.
Mehta had told the court that the revised policy was necessary because private candidates, unlike regular students, do not have school-based internal assessment records such as periodic tests, half-yearly examinations and pre-board marks, which formed the basis of the March 27 assessment scheme for regular students.
The issue arose after the CBSE cancelled Class 12 board examinations in seven West Asian countries — Bahrain, Iran, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE — due to the regional conflict.