CHANDIGARH: In an embarassing gaffe, the Haryana Board of School Education (HBSE) today released an incorrect merit list for the class X examination conducted by it, which it had to rectified later.

Two employees were suspended for the goof-up, which authorities said had occurred due to a computer glitch.

The overall results too did not cover the the Board with glory as almost every second student who took the exam, failed.

Out of the 3,15,900 students who took the exam, only 1,59,490 passed.

During the day, the HBSE initially declared Monika Rani of Senior Model High School, Bhirdana, Fatehabad as the topper having secured 493 marks out of the total 500.

However, later in the evening, it was clarified that Rani had secured a creditable fifth position while Yudhvir, a student of a school in the Sirsa district was the topper.

Yudhvir's marks - a whopping 499 out of 500 - while the second position holder, Sumit from Jind scored 496 marks, according to a Board official said.

The official said that the error regarding the incorrect merit list had been caused by "computer glitch, which was later rectified".

However, two Board officials were suspended in the matter, she informed.

The goof-up gave the opposition Congress, an opportunity to attack the BJP.

"Another blunder on part of Haryana BJP Govt, that perpetually dithers on all planks! Why are you jeopardising the future of 4 lakh students?," senior Congress leader Randeep Singh Surjewala tweeted.

The examination was conducted by the Bhiwani based board in the month of March.

According to officials, 50.49 per cent of the students who appeared, passed the exam.

While 55.30 per cent girls passed, only 46.52 per cent of the boys cleared the examination, according to a Board release.

Out of the total 3,15,900 candidates, 16,738 students got compartment while 1,39,672 students remained unsuccessful.

As many as 1,73,193 boys appeared in the examination out of which 80,572 passed whereas out of 1,42,707 enrolled girls, 78,918 passed.

The pass percentage for candidates from the government schools in the examination was 43.50 whereas, it was 51.18 per cent in case of government aided schools and 58.13 per cent in case of private schools.

While the pass percentage for students from rural areas was 52.58 per cent, it was 48.38 per cent in case of students from urban areas.

Former Education Minister and senior Congress leader Geeta Bhukkal also attacked the BJP government over the results.

"They are busy in observing Gita festivals, finding course of mythical Saraswati river, giving lectures on moral education and they are involving teachers and students in these campaigns. They should rather devote time to filling up vacancies in schools and creating better infrastructure," Bhukkal said.