Telangana Inter Results fiasco: High Court directs board to declare re-verified results by May 27

The Telangana High Court on Wednesday directed the state government and the Board of Intermediate Education (BIE) to declare the results of re-verified answer scripts and upload answer sheets of all failed students by May 27. A notice was also issued to IT firm Globarena Technologies, which handled the intermediate results, asking its representatives to appear before the court. The court posted the matter to June 6 for further hearing.

The directive came on a petition filed by city-based child rights NGO 'Balala Hakkula Sangham' (BHS), which sought a direction to the government to conduct a detailed enquiry into the entire process of declaration of results and the errors/mistakes committed in the process. The NGO also sought action against board officers and employees responsible for the "deaths" of failed students who allegedly committed suicide.

Opposition parties, including the Congress, BJP, TDP and the TJS, and other students organisations have claimed that over 25 students committed suicide since the declaration of results on April 18. The parties had also complained to Governor E S L Narasimhan and sought a judicial probe into the matter.

Petitioner's counsel Damdoar Reddy said the court directed the state government and the BIE to declare the results of re-verification and upload the answer sheets of over three lakh failed students by May 27. "It will enable the students to download the answer sheets," Reddy added.

The alleged bungling by BIE in announcement of results led to widespread protests by students, their parents and political parties across the state. About 9.74 lakh students had appeared for the intermediate exam in March this year, of whom 3.28 lakh were declared failed. Some students and their parents claimed that they secured poor marks despite being merit students.

In the wake of suicides of students over the alleged goof-up in declaration of results of intermediate examinations in the state, the BIE had earlier said that it carried out a comprehensive analysis of answer scripts of those who committed suicide and found that none of the suicides were linked to error in publication of results.

Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao has already directed officials concerned not to charge any fee for re-verification and re-counting from failed students. The government has also announced that failed students need not apply for re-counting and re-verification.