Chandigarh: Percentile system of merit upheld by High Court

Chandigarh:The Punjab and Haryana High Court has upheld Baba Farid University of Health Sciences (BFUHS) adoption of the percentile system, to declare the result of Pre-Medical Entrance Test (PMET 2016). The bench dismissed all appeals against its single judge order and also turned down all requests of re-test.

The decision came from a two member bench headed by Justices Surya Kant and Sudip Ahluwalia on the appeals filed by Ravneet Kaur and others.

On September 9, Justice GS Sandhawalia had dismissed the petitions and also declined retests. However the petitioners approached a division bench this time.

Justice Sandhawalia on setting a deadline for three days had given directions to the university to display a combined merit list on its website of all candidates who had sat for the examinations, to exhibit to them their percentile and maintain transparency in the declaration of the result.

According to the judge, the university had wrongly declared four questions to being invalid out of the total of 14. However he announced only two questions to have been wrong. PMET was conducted on the 10^th of June.

The petitioners, Ravneet Kaur and four other candidates, had challenged the PMET result which was declared on the basis of the percentile method by the University, allegedly in contravention to the provisions of Clause 8 of the notification dated June 10 by Punjab government and Clause 7 of the notification dated March 18 contained in the prospectus of the PMET-2016. The petitioners alleged 110 questions to be wrong.

However, Justice Sandhawalia upheld the varsity’s resort to percentile system upheld, in view of the changing circumstances. He justified his decision saying that the same principle has been applied to one and all and the relative merit not disturbed.