Odisha Govt's wrong Class X results drove girl to suicide:  NHRC

The National Human Rights Commission has asked the Government of Odisha why it should not recommend payment of rupees three lakh as monetary relief to the next of kin of a class 10th student, who committed suicide when she was erroneously shown failed in the results of the Board Exams, which, in fact, she had cleared.

Mr. Justice D. Murugesan, Member of the Commission, in the show cause notice issued to the Chief Secretary of the State Government, has set aside the contention of the State Government that the student committed suicide as she apprehended her poor performance. He observed that the victim committed suicide on account of negligence of the officials of the Board of Secondary Education, Odisha, which had issued a wrong result only to be corrected subsequently. Therefore, the State is vicariously liable. He has given six weeks’ to the State Government to respond.

The Commission took cognizance of the matter on the basis of a complaint that Rasmita Sahu, daughter of Bimsen Sahu of Bhaliabadi Village under Khurda Town police station could not tolerate the trauma of failing her class 10th examination conducted by the Board of Secondary Education, Odisha and committed suicide on the 1st May, 2014. However, in the revised result, released on the 2nd May, 2014, she was shown as passed.

Pursuant to the directions of the Commission, the State Government admitted that the result, published on the 30th April, 2014, was corrected on the 2nd May, 2014, as there was certain anomaly in the result of Third Language (Sanskrit/Hindi) for some students. It also said that publication of result by Board is a provisional one, subject to modification and revision. The report further said that the first result published by the Board cannot be linked to the death of the student as she scored below average marks in her school examinations and might have been apprehensive of her educational standard.