Dhaka: The High Court on Wednesday issued a rule asking the authorities concerned to explain as to why their inaction to check the answer scripts of Secondary School Certificate (SSC) and Higher Secondary Certificate (HSC) examinations by skilled and experienced teachers should not be declared illegal.

Following a writ petition filed in the form of public interest litigation, an HC bench comprising Justice M Moinul Islam Chowdhury and Justice JMB Hassan also wanted to know why directives should not be given to provide adequate time to the examiners for evaluating the answer sheets.

 The Education Secretary and chairmen of different education boards have been asked to reply to the rule within four weeks.

A report headlined ‘Chaos in evaluating SSC, HSC answer sheets’ was published in a national daily on November 23 last.

On Sunday, Human Rights and Peace for Bangladesh (HRPB) filed the writ petition with the High Court attaching the report.

Advocate Manzill Murshid stood for the petitioner while Deputy Attorney General Motahar Hossain Raju represented the state.

Talking to reporters, Manzill Murshid said hundreds of students are getting additional marks following reevaluation of their answer sheets while many are committing suicide for not passing examinations.

Such incidents occur for not evaluating the answer sheets of the SSC and HSC examinations by competent and experienced teachers, he said.