The Bombay High Court on Tuesday rejected the petition filed by 154 students challenging the process of normalisation of marks adopted by the state Common Entrance Test (CET) cell after it conducted a retest for over 11,000 students seeking admission in MBA/MMS colleges for 2023-2024, saying that the same was "without substance".
CET exam should be done again: Students
A division bench of Justices Gautam Patel and Neela Gokhale observed: "Only 154 students came before us. They say the entire CET exam should be done again. No thought is spared to hundreds of thousands of others who gave the entrance exam. The petitioners do not represent all candidates, yet we are expected that all those persons suffer at the instance of present disgruntled persons without being given the slightest opportunity of being heard by the others."
It further said that these issues were raised after the results of the retest were declared. "It is indeed telling that all these complaints of structural failures or discrepancies are brought to life only after results are declared. We are wholly unable to see any substance in the petition. We reject it on facts and substance," the judges added.
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The court further said that since the petitioners are students, it is refraining from imposing a cost.
Terming the petitioners' stand as unfair, the court noted in its order: "The entire stand of petitioners appears to be singularly unfair. We are asked to hold that the results of the vast majority will be thrown into jeopardy at the instance of less than one per cent of students."
HC refuses to grant interim relief
On July 3, the HC refused to grant interim relief to the students and allowed the CET cell to go ahead with the admission process, subject to a final order from the court. Satish Takekar, an advocate for the students, had argued that the authorities were changing the method of normalisation after taking the retest, which was unfair.
However, the bench dismissed the argument saying that the CET cell had issued a brochure in April which contained a document of normalisation which "specified clearly that the percentile scoring method will be used".Talekar had further argued that the document of normalisation was issued belatedly; the bench remarked: "No candidate was compelled to appear for the re-examination... It is for the authority to find the appropriate method of normalisation of marks. It is not for the candidate to decide (the method)."
The bench agreed with the arguments of the advocate general Birendra Saraf and noted: "Dr Saraf is not wrong in describing this (petition0 as an attempt to cancel the entire examination after those who took slot five examination voluntarily gambled on it and lost.
" Rejecting the petition, the HC added: "There is nothing shown that the normalisation method adopted by CET cell is unfair."
