- (1.) The petitioner s son was admitted to South Point High School in Class-XI for the academic session 2011-2012 in Commerce Stream. The petitioner s son pursued his studies from Kerala Public School, affiliated to the Council for the Indian School Certificate Examination, New Delhi. The said school was situated at Rairangpur in the State of Orissa. He passed out Class-X examination conducted by the said Council for the Indian School Certificate Examination, New Delhi (ICSE for short). English, Environmental Education, Hindi, History, Civics and Geography, Mathematics, Commercial Studies and Computer Applications subjects having secured 81% marks in total.
(2.) In the month of November 2011, after having pursued his studies for several months, the school authorities informed that the West Bengal Council of Higher Secondary Education, the respondent no.6 herein, have refused to register the said student as he did not have the Science subject in ICSE. The School Authorities, however, requested the respondent no.6 to consider the case sympathetically and to register the petitioner s son to save his one academic year which he spent in continuing his studies with the said School. The respondent no.6, however, refused to admit and register as the petitioner passed out Class-X Examination conducted by the said Council without the Science Subject which cannot be treated as equivalent to Madhyamik Examination conducted by the West Bengal Board of Secondary Education. The petitioner being the father and the natural guardian of the said student have filed the instant writ petition praying for a writ of mandamus commanding the respondent no.6 to issue the confirmation of registration in favour of his son and to issue an exhaustive notification with details of studies for old streams by setting aside the notification dated 11.10.2006 for the purpose of considering the question of equivalents.
(3.) Before proceeding to record and/or deal with the respective submissions, it would be pertinent to quote the relevant provisions contained in notification no. 185-SE-(HS)/8C-04/06 dated 11th October, 2006 which runs thus: 2. (h) equivalent examination means,- (i) a public examination, by whatever name it is called, instituted by an authority included in Schedule I, the curriculum of which is comparable to the pattern of Secondary Education and which terminates the studies of class X; or (ii) such other examination as the State Government may, by order, specify as such and which terminates the studies of class X. Explanation I.- An examination passed under any Open School System shall be considered as equivalent examination, if the curriculum of such examination is comparable to the Secondary Education. Explanation II.- For removal of doubts, it is hereby declared that an examination without the paper on Physical Science, Life Science and Mathematics shall not be considered as equivalent examination;;