Regulations concerning practical examinations must be upheld, ensuring fairness and consistency in the evaluation process as determined by academic authorities.

JUDGMENT

The petitioners are final-year BAMS (Bachelor of Ayurvedic Medicine and Surgery) students belonging to the 2020 batch of MVR Ayurveda Medical College, Parassinikkadavu, Kannur. As per the Regulations of the Kerala University of Health Sciences, the duration of the BAMS course is 4½ years plus one year of compulsory House Surgency. For the petitioners to commence House Surgency, they have to pass all theory, practical and Viva Voce examinations. In the petitioners' college, the Final Year Panchakarma Practical examination was held on 05.08.2025, 06.08.2025 and 07.08.2025. The grievance of the petitioners is that, despite scoring good marks in theory examination, they were made to fail in the Panchakarma Practical exam, by deliberately awarding low marks. When the results were published on 03.09.2025, the petitioners realised that a total of 18 students in their batch had failed in the Panchakarma Practicals. According to the petitioners, such large scale failure is unprecedented and no other college under KUHS has reported even a single instance of a student, who had passed in theory failing in the Panchakarma practical. The petitioners allege that the faulty manner in which the practical was conducted has led to their failure and therefore, seek intervention by this Court.

2. Heard, Senior Advocates Ranjith Thampan for the petitioners, P. Sreekumar for respondents 2 to 7 along with Advs.Devika K.R for the 8^th respondent and N.M.Madhu for the

10^th respondent.

3. Senior Advocate Ranjith Thampan submitted that the Panchakarma Practical examination consists of a Long Procedure and Short Procedure. The students are required to demonstrate as well as write down the Long Procedure. Contrary to this accepted practice, the examiners required the students to write only the name of the procedure allotted to them in the answer booklet. Reference is made to the affidavit of the Head of the Department of Panchakarma, Government Ayurveda Medical College, Tripunithura produced as Ext.P25 in support of the argument that Panchakarma practicals require the student to demonstrate and write down the procedure in the answer booklet. Attention is also drawn to Ext.P9 to point out that even the Enquiry Commission had opined that the unintentional serious negligence from the part of the examiners who conducted practical examination for Panchakarma had paved the way for discrepancies in the award of marks.

4. Apart from the mistake in conducting the practicals, the examiners had awarded marks in an indiscriminate manner. To buttress the contention, attention is drawn to Exts.P12 and P22. According to the Senior Counsel, in spite of the 6^th petitioner writing the Short procedure of Panchakarma exactly as per the SoP, she was granted only 3 marks, whereas, a student named Ayana Sunil Kumar was given 4 marks for Short Procedure, although she had mistakenly written some other procedure. 5. It is contended by the Senior Counsel that once this Court is convinced about the irregular procedure adopted and the indiscriminate manner in which marks were awarded, the proper course to be adopted is either to order the conduct of a fresh Panchakarma Practical and Viva Voce examination for the petitioners or to delete Long Procedure from the practical examination. In support of this argument, reliance is placed on the decision of the Apex Court in Vikas Pratap Singh and Others v. State of Chhattisgarh and Others [(2013) 14 SCC

494].

6. Senior Advocate P.Sreekumar, appearing for the University contended that no reliance can be placed on Ext.P9 as it is only the report of an internal enquiry conducted by the college itself. It is submitted that during Long Procedure, the students have to demonstr