The High Court of Karnataka has upheld the decision of the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) to cancel all the examinations of a class 12 student, who carried a mobile phone inside the examination hall in Bengaluru in February 2025, and also debarring him from taking exams in all subjects even in the next year.
A division bench comprising Chief Justice Vibhu Bakhru and Justice C.M. Poonacha passed the order while allowing an appeal filed by the CBSE against the August 23, 2025, judgment of a single judge, who had directed the CBSE to announce the student’s result while quashing the penalty of debarring the student from taking exams for two academic years.
While the CBSE had passed the order in May 2025 disqualifying the student for taking exams for two academic years under cateogry-3 of unfair means in exams, he was declared successful in the JEE-Advanced Examination in June 2025. Interestingly, he had scored 92% in his class 10 CBSE exams.
Inverdently carried
He had carried the mobile phone on the first day of exams — for the Physical Education paper — and the invigilator had noticed the mobile phone in his pocket after about 25 minutes of commencement of exams. The invigilator seized the phone. The student had claimed that he entered the exam hall with a mobile phone inadvertently, as he came late to the exam centre.
