Kerala HC cancels KEAM results over new weightage criteria; govt files appeal

Kochi: The Kerala Government on Wednesday filed an appeal challenging the High Court's order cancelling the results of the KEAM (Kerala Engineering, Architecture and Medical) entrance exam. Justice D K Singh issued the verdict while considering the petition filed by a student challenging the changes in the standardisation formula introduced by the state government to prepare the KEAM rank list. 

The state has moved a division bench, contesting the single bench order. The High Court is scheduled to hear the appeal on Thursday.

Earlier in the day, the court had set aside the rank list published based on the revised prospectus and directed that a revised rank list shall be prepared.

The court's decision came just as the admission process was about to begin, throwing the entire KEAM engineering admission procedure into uncertainty.

“The standardisation process could have resulted in a 35-mark difference for a student under the Kerala syllabus. That’s why we adopted a formula that is fair to all students,” said Higher Education Minister R Bindu. The Cabinet is scheduled to meet on Thursday.

The State government amended the prospectus based on the recommendations of an expert committee. It provided much relief to the Kerala state syllabus students who had raised concerns that they lost up to 30 marks in the standardisation process, which eventually affected their final rank. The petitioner who moved the HC against the cabinet decision pointed out that the change was introduced towards the end of the selection process, and going by the revised prospectus, the rank was pushed further down the list. 

The Government introduced changes in the standardisation process modelled on Tamil Nadu and addressed the concerns of students in the state syllabus. One of the key changes was made in computing the marks of the three subjects.

As per the amendment, the marks of three subjects; Mathematics, Physics and Chemistry/Computer Science/Biotechnology/Biology, after effecting the normalisation in each subject, shall be put together in the ratio 5:3:2 ( Mathematics:150, Physics:90 and Chemistry:60) so that the combined marks of the three subjects would be out of 300. Earlier, all three subjects were weighed equally.

The government approved the formula for standardisation as per the recommendations of the expert committee constituted in 2011. Statistical parameters, such as the Global Mean and Global Standard Deviation, were used. The amendment eliminated these criteria.