The Supreme Court on Monday disposed of a contempt plea against the CBSE after it submitted that it was ready to provide copy of answer sheets at Rs 2 per page to the students under the Right To Information (RTI) Act. A bench of Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and justices S K Kaul and K M Joseph accepted the submissions of senior advocate Maninder Singh, appearing for the Central Board for Secondary Education (CBSE), that the apex court order was being followed.
It disposed of the contempt petition that claimed that exorbitant fees were being charged by the CBSE from students in violation of the court's order for accessing the answer sheets under the RTI.
The CBSE, in its response to the contempt plea, said that it would provide answer sheets at Rs 2 per page to students as per the order of the Supreme Court.
The contempt petition was filed by Whistle for Public Interest (WHIP), an organisation of young lawyers that claims to be working for promoting transparency and accountability in the affairs of public authorities in India.
It was alleged that CBSE has been charging as much Rs 1,000 for Class X students and Rs 1,200 for Class XII students who sought copies of their answer sheets and revaluation of the same under the transparency law.
The contempt plea has alleged that the CBSE has willfully and deliberately disobeyed the directions of the apex court, which had in 2016 said that the board should 'scrupulously' follow its 2011 verdict holding that the students have the fundamental and legal right to access their evaluated answer-sheets under the Right to Information Act.
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