HC Directs MGR Medical University to use Double Evaluate 2 Biochemistry papers of MBBS students

Chennai: The Madras High Court has ruled out the possibility of the Tamil Nadu Dr. MGR Medical University taking up one of the two papers in a subject for double valuation when an aggregate of the marks scored by a medical student in the two papers is to be considered for deciding the marks scored in the concerned subject.

Justice S. Vaidyanathan gave the above decision in response to a writ filed by a MBBS student challenging the university’s decision to double evaluate only his biochemistry theory paper-I in which he had a poor score of 15 out of 50 marks and not the 2^nd theory paper in the subject in which he scored a 50% by scoring 25 out of 50 marks.

The university counsel contended in court that the governing council had in its 2014 and 2015 resolutions reintroduced the double valuation system, which meant that instead of re-evaluating answer scripts of students with poor scores, a double valuation system be used to assess student performance.

It was further resolved that double valuation should be done for all failed subjects, even the ones that fell within the zone of grace marks if a student failed to clear more than one subject.

As per the resolutions, the Ist evaluation marks or the average of the two valuations, whichever was higher, were to be considered as the final score.

In the petitioner’s case, the judge said the university may have been right in its refusal to double valuate one of the two theory papers of biochemistry, if it had been following the practice of considering marks of each of these two papers separately, without reckoning aggregate marks.

“As long as the aggregate of total marks of two papers are taken into consideration for the purpose of declaring the result of the petitioner, both the theory papers will have to be subjected to double valuation, enabling him to have aggregate of marks in both the papers,” said the judge directing the university to subject the theory paper II also to double valuation reported the Hindu.