School will face consequences for playing with students’ future: HC

Kolkata: The Calcutta High Court on Wednesday said St Augustine’s Day School, Ripon Street, “will face the consequences” for playing with children’s future and misleading board-year students. But at present, “the prime consideration is how to protect the future of the students who might fail (to) take the Board examinations for the fault of the school authorities,” the court said.
Justice Biswajit Basu agreed to the CISCE’s submission that he will pass necessary orders to the CISCE to accommodate the children to appear for the ICSE and ISC examinations in 2024 on “humanitarian” grounds.
It was a “criminal offence” to print the school’s CISCE registration number on the class IX mark sheets despite the fact that the council deaffiliated the school on September 16, 2022, the court said. It asked the principal and “all the authorities managing the affairs of the school” to personally appear before it when it hears the matter again on September 21 at 10.30am.
It asked deputy solicitor-general Billwadal Bhattacharya to inspect the school records on Friday and report to it the number of board-year students pushed to uncertainty due to the school’s conduct.
An agitated Justice Biswajit Basu said he was very “surprised and disturbed”, and asked the school why he should not issue an order to file an FIR against them. When the school’s lawyer Samir Kumar Choudhury laboured to explain that they too want the children to appear for the board exams, an angry Justice Basu said, “Bring all the board members and trustee members before me, I want to see their faces. Why should they (the children’s parents) have to come here? Why do they have to come to court? Please do not try to justify.”
In its order the court said: “The consequence of such misrepresentation will be decided after giving the school authorities an opportunity to explain their such conduct. ”
Senior advocate Kalyan Banerjee, who was arguing for the parents, said though parents of 76 board-year students had filed the HC plea, there are 297 students who are set to appear for their board examinations in 2024. The school now has over 3,000 students. To St Augustine, Justice Basu said, “I want you to put up a placard immediately at the school gates that the school has been deaffliated.”
The CISCE told the HC that student’s future was their foremost concern. “The school has to heavily compensate the council and face consequences. But we want a nudge from the HC,” Sanjay Baid, the CISCE counsel, told the HC. “We told the school first in 2022 that we are suspending your affiliation, so do not admit any more students. On July 14, 2022, we told them you are still admitting students breaching our rules. On September 16, 2022, we withdrew the affiliation,” he said.
The HC also asked the school to pay Rs 80,000 to the deputy solicitor general for the HC-appointed task by Thursday.