The Bombay High Court (HC) Tuesday directed the state government to form a team of officials to carry out “random visits” at all examination centres facing an issue of power outage and load-shedding. Expressing displeasure, the HC remarked that it was the “state’s obligation” to provide uninterrupted power supply to all examination centres during the upcoming HSC and SSC exams.
Justices A S Oka and G S Kulkarni were hearing a contempt petition filed against the state for breach of HC’s earlier orders. The stand taken by the state government did not go down too well with the court. “Why action of contempt should not be taken after orders have been passed… This stand is completely contrary to the orders of the court,” said the bench.
Government pleader Abhinandan Vagyani had earlier told the HC that installing diesel generators at the 153 SSC/ HSC exam centres, which would be affected by load shedding, would be dangerous.
The HC had earlier asked the state to provide generators and converters to such centers. However, the HC said it was necessary to ensure the that such equipment work efficiently in future too. The court, as a result, asked what did the state propose to do about examinations next year.
The court then directed the Secretary of state School Education Department to form a team of officials who would visit each centre affected by load-shedding. “It should be a random visit… Members should visit on days of examinations and find whether generators and converters are in working condition and whether they are providing adequate power supply,” the court directed.
The HC also asked the state to focus on measures to combat the problem for the exams that will take place in 2015. The court has posted the hearing on October 9. The court was hearing a bunch of petitions alleging the non-implementation of a 2009 HC order that had directed the government to provide uninterrupted power to examination centres.
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