Bombay HC Dismisses Plea Challenging CET Cell’s Normalization Process for MBA Admission

The Bombay High Court on Tuesday dismissed a petition challenging the Maharashtra government’s Common Entrance Test (CET) Cell’s process of normalizing marks for admission to the MBA course in 2023.

A division bench of Justice Gautam Patel and Justice Neela Gokhale deemed the petition filed by 154 students to be “lacking substance” and pointed out that the objections were raised solely by the petitioners, despite over one lakh students having appeared for the examination.

“The 154 petitioners here do not represent the over one lakh students who appeared for the exams. It is also indeed telling that all the complaints made in the petition have been made only after the exams were held and the results were declared,” the bench stated.

The court also mentioned that it refrained from imposing any costs on the petitioners due to their status as students. However, the bench acknowledged that the petitioners had requested for the CET to be conducted once again.

“No thought is spared to hundreds of thousands of others who gave the entrance exam. The petitioners do not represent all candidates, yet we are expected that all those persons suffer at the instance of present disgruntled persons without being given the slightest opportunity of being heard to the others,” it added.

The bench was a plea filed by the 154 students raising objections to the normalisation of marks process adopted by the CET cell after it conducted a re-test for some students.

The plea filed by advocates S B Talekar and Madhavi Ayyappan on behalf of the petitioners argued that the postgraduate management admission process in the state lacked transparency and fairness.

According to the plea, the Common Entrance Test (CET) exams were conducted in four slots, with 30,000 students in each slot, on March 25 and 26 of this year. However, students in the first slot encountered technical glitches and some were given extra time.

In response to the complaints, the CET cell organized a re-examination, which was mandatory for students who received additional time and optional for those who faced technical difficulties.

Advocate General Birendra Saraf, representing the state government, opposed the plea, stating that the test schedule was announced in February. Over one lakh candidates were divided into four batches, and separate exams were conducted for each batch. Out of the 11,562 students who appeared for the re-examination on May 6, more than 70 were petitioners. Saraf highlighted that there was a separate percentile score for the concerned batch, treating them as a distinct group.

The petitioner counsel argued that the normalization process was flawed as there should have been an equal number of students in each batch.

However, the bench noted in its order that no evidence was presented to suggest that the normalization process was unfair. The court explained that different question papers were provided for each slot due to security reasons and variations in difficulty levels, which justified the need for normalization. The court further highlighted that courts in India generally refrain from interfering in matters related to public exams and admission processes, respecting the autonomy of the authorities involved.