State of Kerala vs Fathima Seethi - 2002 Supreme(Ker) 484

Judicial Analysis Court Copy Headnote Facts Arguments Court observation

2002 Supreme(Ker) 484

Judges : B.N.SRIKRISHNA,G.SIVARAJAN
State of Kerala - Appellant
Versus
Fathima Seethi - Respondent
Case No : WA.NOS.1870, 1881, 1894 etc. OF 2002
Decided On : 08/05/2002
Advocates Appeared :
For Petitioner: Ratna Singh, (Advocate General), P.I. Davis,(Govt. Pleader.) For Respondent : B.Raghu Nath, V.V. Mathew, Advocates.

Headnote:
Constitution of India – Article 14, 226 – Judicial review – Illegality – Jurisdiction – Writ of certiorari – Arbitrariness – Process of evaluation – Liable – Fundamental right – Natural justice – Quasi-judicial – Admission to Professional Degree Courses is determined by merit of a candidate as ascertained in the Entrance Examination – Entrance Examination is conducted by an officer specially empowered by the State of Kerala, who is known as the Commissioner for Entrance Examinations –Objections ranged from challenging the accuracy of the key answers to pointing out that there could be more than one 'most appropriate answer' to the questions, thus challenging some of the questions as objective multiple choice questions. – As a matter of fact, some of the students raised objections, as soon as the examinations were over and even before the key answers were published. – Commissioner, not being an expert in academic matters, constituted a committee of experts to consider the objections. – On the basis of the advice tendered to him by the experts, the Commissioner decided to delete 13 questions from the process of evaluation, even before the key answers were published. After the key answers were published, and further objections were received and considered, four more questions were deleted on the advice obtained from the experts. – Rank list was thereafter compiled on 8.6.2002. – As expected, a spate of writ petitions were moved in this Court. – Held, learned counsel for students that first paper does not have equal weightage in Chemistry and Physics inasmuch as there are 72 questions of Chemistry as against 48 questions of Physics – Deletion of ten questions from Chemistry would put some students to disadvantage because proportional weightage given to two subjects would be disturbed – Candidates are required to answer 62 questions in Chemistry and 46 questions in Physics – Maximum marks in two subjects would be 248 and 184 respectively – Marks obtained by each candidate in Chemistry shall be multiplied by 72/62 and marks obtained in Physics shall be multiplied by 48/46 to obtain corrected marks in both subjects to maintain same proportional weightage given to two subjects – Appeals Allowed

Judgment :-

Srikrishna. C.J.

Appeals admitted. Notices made returnable forthwith. Respondents waive service through respective counsel. By consent, appeals called out for hearing and heard.

2. These appeals are directed against the judgment of the learned Single Judge dated 12th July, 2002 in O.P.Nos.15643,16123,16306,16310,16312,16377,16847,17147, 18367, 18711 and 19110 of 2002.

3. The facts Admission to professional Degree Courses is determined by merit of a candidate as ascertained in the Entrance Examination. The Entrance Examination is conducted by an officer specially empowered by the State of Kerala, who is known as the Commissioner for Entrance Examinations (hereinafter referred as "the Commissioner").

4. The prospectus for admission to the Professional Degree Courses Kerala, 2002 published by the State of Kerala on 2nd March, 2002 gives detailed information as to the methodology adopted for conducting the examination for ascertaining the inter se merit of the students. Paragraph 9.4 describes in detail the Scheme of the Examination and says:-

9.4.1. The examination(s) will be objective in nature, and based on single response that is, for each question, five suggested answers will be given, of which only one will be the MOST APPROPRIATE RESPONSE, and the candidate will have to select and mark the answer in the appropriate space in the Answer Sheet. (The specimen answer sheet is appended).

9.4.2. The question paper for all the subjects will be given in the form of question-booklets. Candidates will be permitted to take the question booklet with term at the end of the examination.

9.4.3. All Papers will have 120 questions each, with a duration of 120 minutes.

9.4.4. Scoring, negative marking:

For each correct response, the candidates will be awarded FOUR marks, and for each incorrect response, ONE mark will be deducted from the total score. However, in the event of failure to answer a question, (that is, no response is indicated for an item in the answer-sheet) no deduction from the total score will be made. More than one answer indicated against a question will be deemed as incorrect response, and will be negatively marked. Therefore the candidates are advised not to attempt an answer, should they not be sure of the response, because mere guessing may lead to choice of wrong answers, with the consequent penalty of negative marking.

Paragraph 9.5 indicates that the standard of the examination will be that of Higher Secondary or equivalent examinations. The syllabi are indicated in Annexure XVI of the Prospectus. There is however a note of caution introduced that the syllabi are only outlines of the topics that would be covered in the test and that, since the tests are of highly competitive nature and the cream of the competing students had to be found out through a process of elimination, higher order application questions on the topics included in the published syllabi can be expected. Students are also advised that questions are not exclusively based on the text book published by the national Council for Education, Research and Training (NCERT) or any other particular text book. Paragraph 9.7.5 deals with the manner of preparation of rank lists to determine the merit of the student. As we are concerned with the examination for admission to the Professional Degrees in Medical and Agricultural Courses, paragraph 9.7.5(e)(ii) indicates that the marks obtained in Biology and Chemistry would be determinative of the merits of the student in the event of a tie. It is also made clear by paragraph 9.7.5(c) that the rank list for Medical/Agricultural courses except B.Pharm. will be prepared on the basis of the total marks obtained in Biology and Chemistry and physics paper in the Medical Entrance Examination.

5. In all, there are two papers, paper I comprising Chemistry and Physics and paper II comprising Biology. There are 120 questions set in each paper. In paper I questions 1 to 72 are on Chemistry and questions 73 to 120 are on physi

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2002 Supreme(Ker) 484

Cases Referred (2)