The High Court of Karnataka on Monday said that the process of document verification of the candidates seeking admission to professional courses based on their Karnataka Common Entrance Test (KCET)-2022 ranks would be subject to orders of the court .
The court also said that document verification process would be without prejudice to the rights and contentions of the students, who have knocked on the doors of the court on the issue of ranking.
Counselling
Justice S.R. Krishna Kumar passed the order after the Karnataka Examinations Authority (KEA) and the State government told the court that counselling for seats has not yet commenced as only the document verification is being done at present.
The petitions were filed by a group of students questioning challenging non-consideration of their marks obtained in the II PU course in 2021 while allotting ranks to them in the KCET-2022.
The petitioners have said that they had completed II PU in 2021 and appeared for KCET-2021 but did not pursue admission to professional courses last year.
Though the petitioners appeared for KCET-2022 held this year, the KEA allotted them ranks based on the marks secured by them only in the KCET-2022 papers without considering their II PU marks.
Two methods
The petitioners have contended that the KEA has allotted ranks to the students who appeared for the II PU exams in 2022 by considering the marks of II PU and KCET-2022 in 50:50 ratio as per the law while applying a different standard for them. Two methods adopted to allot ranks amounts to discrimination, the petitioners have said.
The KEA last year allotted ranks only based on the marks of KCET-2021 as no exams were held for II PU in 2021 due to COVID-19 and the students were awarded marks on a specially created formula based on the marks obtained by the students in their Class X and I PU.
During the hearing, the judge orally told the Additional Advocate General that the authorities will have to do some brainstorming to overcome the peculiar situation. The judge pointed out that the students, who completed II PU last year, are allowed to pursue pure science courses based on II PU marks and the same marks are not considered for the admission to professional courses.
Further hearing is adjourned till August 18.
