Patna: Begusarai girl Bhavya Kumari, a Simultala Residential School student who secured second position with 92.8 per cent in the matriculation examination last year, has been declared the state topper for 2017.

Bhavya had to fight her case in Patna High Court after the Bihar School Examination Board ignored her pleas for being given marks in her unevaluated questions.

The bench of Justice Chakradhari Sharan Singh on Wednesday slapped a fine of Rs 5 lakh on the board after the court found that the answer to a question carrying two marks in her Hindi answer book had been left unevaluated.

Bhavya had secured 464 marks in the matriculation. After re-evaluation, she was awarded one mark more, and her final score became 465. That made her the state topper jointly with Prem Kumar, a student of Shree Govind High School in Mano, Lakhisarai.

Bhavya, who is in Kota, Rajasthan, preparing for the IIT entrance test, was happy to have been declared the state topper, but said she had also demanded re-evaluation in her Sanskrit and social science papers. She plans to take up the case with a larger bench of the high court.

Bhavya told The Telegraph from Kota: "This is a clear case of negligence on part of the board, which has given final marks without evaluating questions. In 2017, when the matriculation paper was declared, I secured 464 marks but I was confident of getting more marks and challenged the board."

She said her fight is not against officials but she wants to raise the issue of negligence on the part of the board.

A former teacher of Simultala Residential School said: "Though only one mark has been added in her final score, the way she fought for her right can be inspirational to others and it also raises the issue of negligence on the part of the board."

Bhavya, unlike other students, did not knock the door of the board for scrutiny of papers; she filed a right to information (RTI) application.

As she is a minor, her father Ram Prakash Singh filed the RTI application seeking details of the state toppers of the 2017 matriculation examination. In November 2017, she again filed an RTI application when the board failed to provide photocopies of her Hindi, social science and Sanskrit papers. In March this year, she received the photocopies, and moved the high court.

She had submitted that three answers in Hindi and one answer each in social science and Sanskrit papers were left unevaluated. The five questions carried a total of six marks. However, the board said only one question was left unevaluated.

The court has asked the board to revise Bhavya's results within two weeks, and observed that the board appears to have not even initiated any inquiry into a gross act of interpolation and fraud.

In October last year, the high court fined the board for failing a candidate, Priyanka Singh, who was given nine out of 100 marks in Sanskrit and 29 out of 80 in science. She had actually scored 80 in Sanskrit and 61 in science.