HC Rejects the plea of 154 students raising objections to the normalisation of marks process adopted by the CET cell: Look what happened?

The Bombay High Court dismissed a petition submitted by 154 students challenging the mark normalization process implemented by the Maharashtra government’s Common Entrance Test (CET) Cell for admission to the MBA course in 2023. Justices Gautam Patel and Neela Gokhale, presiding over a division bench, deemed the plea “without substance” and highlighted that among the over one lakh students who took the examination, only the petitioners voiced objections.

The court emphasized that the 154 petitioners cannot be seen as representative of the vast number of over one lakh students who took the exams. It also pointed out that all the complaints raised in the petition were brought forward after the exams had already taken place and the results were announced. However, the court refrained from imposing any costs on the petitioners due to their student status. It was noted by the bench that the petitioners were seeking a re-conduct of the CET, without considering the impact on the numerous other candidates who had also taken the entrance exam. The court highlighted that the petitioners’ views do not encompass all the candidates, and it is unfair to expect that everyone should suffer due to the grievances of a few individuals who have not given others the opportunity to be heard.

The court’s decision was made in response to a petition submitted by the 154 students who raised objections to the mark normalization process implemented by the CET cell. This process was introduced after the CET cell conducted a re-test for certain students. The advocates representing the petitioners, S B Talekar and Madhavi Ayyappan, argued that the postgraduate management admission process in the state lacked transparency and fairness in its execution. According to the plea, the CET exams took place in four sessions, with 30,000 students participating in each session on March 25 and 26 of this year. However, students who appeared in the first session encountered technical glitches, and some were given additional time to complete their exams. In response to the complaints, the CET cell organized a re-examination, which was mandatory for students who received additional time and optional for those who believed they faced technical difficulties.

The state government’s representative, Advocate General Birendra Saraf, opposed the petition and argued that the test schedule was announced in February, with over 1 lakh candidates divided into four batches for separate exams. Out of the total 11,562 students who participated in the re-examination on May 6, more than 70 of them were among the current petitioners. Saraf stated that the concerned batch had a separate percentile score and was considered as a distinct group. On the other hand, Talekar contended that the normalization process was flawed since there should have been an equal number of students in each batch. However, the court observed in its ruling that no evidence was presented to demonstrate any unfairness in the normalization process. The court stated that different question papers are given for each slot due to security reasons, and not all papers have the same difficulty level, necessitating the normalization process. It further noted that Indian courts generally refrain from interfering in matters related to public examinations and admission procedures to uphold the autonomy of the respective authorities.

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