Cuttack: The Orissa high court has directed the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) to publish within a week the Class XII-2025 results of 74 students of Padampur Public School in Bargarh district, quashing the board’s earlier decision cancelling their results over alleged use of unfair means. “When there is no authentic/concrete legal proof before CBSE authorities to reach in a definite conclusion that, the petitioners had adopted malpractice during examination in respect of some answers in two to three subjects, then, at this juncture, the cancellation of the result of the petitioners cannot be sustainable under law,” Justice Ananda Chandra Behera ruled in his judgment on Friday (April 10). The petitioner-students had appeared for the Senior School Certificate Examination, 2025 conducted by the CBSE at Odisha Adarsha Vidyalaya, Bandupali. However, when results were declared on May 13, 2025, their scores were withheld and marked as “Result Later (R.L)” without any marks being awarded. Subsequently, an official order dated May 26, 2025, issued by the CBSE regional director, Bhubaneswar, classified their results under “Unfair Means (UFM)” and cancelled them in all subjects. Earlier, in Dec 2025, the HC had asked the students to submit representations before CBSE authorities. However, with no response forthcoming, they moved the court again.Challenging the action, the petitioners argued that the decision was taken “on the basis of inferences, surmises and conjectures without any direct evidence/material,” while other students at the same centre received their results. They contended that such action violated their right to equality under Article 14. Advocate Kunal Kumar Swain appeared for the petitioners, while advocate Tarananda Pattanayak represented CBSE.Observing that interference was warranted, Justice Behera said “there is justification under law for making interference with the impugned order dated 26.05.2025,” and ruled that “the orders are liable to be quashed.” He noted that “when there is no authentic/concrete legal proof before CBSE authorities to reach in a definite conclusion” about malpractice, the extreme step of cancelling entire results cannot be justified.Quashing the cancellation of the result of the petitioners, Justice Behera ordered: “All the CBSE authorities are jointly and severally directed to publish the result of the Senior School Certificate Examination, 2025 (Class-XII) of the petitioners 2025 within a week from the date of this judgment and to communicate the result of the petitioners as well as its consequential certificates and mark sheets as per the rules immediately after publication of their results.“
