BHUBANESWAR: The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) has held Odisha Government responsible for the suicide of a Class X student over publication of erroneous results two years back and asked why her kin should not be compensated.
Issuing a showcause notice to the Chief Secretary on Monday, the Commission sought to know why it should not recommend payment of `3 lakh as monetary relief to next of kin of the student who committed suicide when she was erroneously shown failed in the results of High School Certificate (HSC) examination in 2014.
Justice D Murugesan, Member of the rights panel, set aside the contention of the State Government that the student, Rashmita Sahu, committed suicide since she apprehended poor results in the examination. He observed that the victim committed suicide because of negligence of officials of Board of Secondary Examination (BSE) which issued a wrong result only to correct it subsequently. That is why, the NHRC said, the State is vicariously liable.
The rights watchdog has given six weeks to the Government to respond to its notice. The Commission had taken cognizance of the matter on the basis of a complaint that Rashmita, daughter of Bhimsen Sahu, a native of Bhaliabadi village under Khurda Town police limits, could not tolerate the trauma of failure in the HSC examination conducted by the BSE and committed suicide on May 1, a day after the results were declared. However, in the revised result, released on May 2, she was shown to have cleared the examination.
Following a direction from the NHRC, the State Government inquired into the matter and in its report, admitted that the result, published on the April 30 was corrected on May 2 because of certain anomaly in the result of Third Language (Sanskrit/Hindi) of some students.
The Government report also said since the result published by BSE was a provisional one, it was subject to modification and revision. It sought to clear itself from the case stating that the first result published by the BSE cannot be linked to the death of Rashmita as she scored below average marks in her school examinations and might have been apprehensive of her educational standard. However, the NHRC rejected the Government’s contention holding it accountable for the girl’s suicide.