Cuttack, June 23: Orissa High Court today allowed the CBSE to withdraw two petitions filed in connection with orders for re-evaluation of answer scripts of students who had taken the Class-XII examination, results of which were declared on May 28.

The vacation court directed the CBSE to re-evaluate the answer scripts of 18 students on June 7, while it passed a similar order for the re-evaluation of answer scripts of another 158 students on June 13.

The CBSE, represented through its regional office in Bhubaneswar, had filed a review petition urging the high court to re-examine the June 7 order and a writ appeal challenging and seeking quashing of the June 13 order.

The single-judge bench of Justice Biswanath Rath and the division bench of Justice S.C. Parija and Justice Debabrata Dash allowed the CBSE's counsel in the presence of its regional officer-in-charge Manish Agarwal to withdraw the review petition and writ appeal respectively after they were "not pressed" before them.

"The court was moved to allow withdrawal of the two petitions on the basis of a decision by the human resources development ministry," CBSE counsel Tarananda Pattanayak said.

The withdrawal of the two petitions assumes significance as in both cases, the CBSE had contended that the two orders for re-evaluation were given on the basis of a notification issued by it on May 24, 2016, which was no longer in force.

An amendment was incorporated through a notification on November 29, 2016, deleting the provisions for re-evaluation. The CBSE had issued a separate set of modalities for the 2017 examination, implementing the amendment that were prescribed through a notification on May 29, 2017, the CBSE's petitions had claimed.

In a related development, the withdrawal of the petitions would have no effect on the suo motu contempt case that the high court had initiated against the CBSE's joint secretary (academics unit) on June 20.

The single-judge bench of Justice Biswanath Rath directed <$>Manoj Srivastava to show cause within two weeks as to why contempt proceedings should not be initiated against him for his comments to the media.

Justice Rath has posted the case to July 3 for hearing along with Srivastava's reply, while directing him to be present in court in person on that day.

In the media report, on the basis of which the court had suo motu initiated the contempt case, Srivastava was quoted as saying: "Based on the erroneous submission made by the CBSE counsel, the high court passed the order on June 7 for re-evaluation of the answer sheets. But the CBSE has scrapped the re-evaluation system as a policy decision. So we filed a review petition in the high court and are waiting for it its hearing on June 19."