JUDGMENT :

1. Leave granted.

2. The present appeal is directed against the judgment order passed by the Division Bench of the High Court at Calcutta in M.A.T. No. 1361 of 2012 dated 03.09.2012. By the said judgment and order, the Division Bench of the High Court has confirmed the judgment and order dated 02.08.2012, passed by the learned Single Judge in Writ Petition No. 12656(W) of 2012.

3. The learned Single Judge, by its order dated 02.08.2012, had allowed the writ petition of the respondent No. 1-herein and stated that the principle of rounding-off should be applied to all candidates who may have secured 44.5% marks or above but below 45% marks in aggregate as 45% marks in aggregate being the minimum marks required to be eligible as laid down in the Information Brochure JEM-2012 issued by the appellants-herein.

4. The Division Bench of the High Court did not find any infirmity or error in the order passed by the learned Single Judge. Therefore, by impugned order dated 03.09.2012, the Division Bench of the High Court of Calcutta dismissed the appeal filed by the appellants-herein and upheld the order of the learned Single Judge, whereby the principle of rounding-off was applied. It would be pertinent to note that both, the learned Single Judge as well as the Division Bench of the High Court took notice of the admitted fact that the respondent No. 1 herein is a general category candidate who obtained 44.6% marks in aggregate in the Science group, that is, below the required aggregate for eligibility.

5. The West Bengal Joint Entrance Examination Board (for short, "the Board") is the appellant No. 1 in the present appeal. The Board was established under the order of the State Government in the Higher Education Department. The basic purpose of the Board is to select candidates to be considered for admission to degree level Engineering, Medical and Technological degree colleges of the State on the basis of the results of a competitive examination as conducted by the Board. According to Shri Piyush Roy, learned counsel for the appellants, the Board has framed the guidelines keeping in view the regulations of the All India Council for Technical Education (for short, "the AICTE"). The AICTE regulations prescribe that general category candidates have to secure 45% marks in Physics, Chemistry and Mathematics and Scheduled Caste and Schedule Tribe candidates have to secure 40% of marks in the aforesaid subjects. The said requirement by the AICTE are mentioned in Appendix I to the Approval Process Handbook 2012-13 as published by the AICTE under clause 4.3 of the All India Council for Technical Education (Grant of Approvals for Technical Institutions) Regulations, 2010.

6. The respondent No. 4-AICTE has been established under the provisions of the All India Council for Technical Education Act, 1987 (No. 52 of 1987) (for short, "the Act, 1987"). According to the preamble of the Act, 1987, the AICTE was set up, inter alia, for the proper planning and coordinated development of the technical education system throughout the country and for the promotion of qualitative improvements of such education in relation to planned quantitative growth and the regulation and proper maintenance of norms and standards in the technical education system. It is to be noted that the AICTE supports the position of the appellants-herein that there could be no application of the principle of rounding-off in the present scenario as the AICTE regulations regarding eligibility of candidates does not provide for the same.

7. Respondent No. 1-herein is a general category candidate who obtained 44.6% marks in aggregate in the Joint Entrance Examination conducted by the Board in the year 2012. As a consequence of a Writ Petition filed before the High Court of Calcutta, the said respondent No. 1 was permitted to participate in the counselling process for admission in an Engineering college depending upon his rank in the said Joint Entrance Examination. It is against this im