Upholding a Single Bench’s order that quashed the results of the State engineering and pharmacy entrance examination (KEAM) 2025 that was announced earlier this month, a Division Bench of the Kerala High Court on Thursday dismissed an appeal filed by the State government challenging the Wednesday’s order.
The Division Bench of Justice Anil K. Narendran and Justice Muralee Krishna S. observed that it found no ground to interfere with the Single Bench order which had directed the Commissioner for Entrance Examinations to publish the rank list in accordance with the prospectus that had been issued in February.
Several students had approached the High Court alleging that the ranking procedure was amended on the date of publication of the rank list (July 1). Citing that the amendment was “arbitrary, illegal and mala fide,” they said that this was made with “the oblique motive to do away with” the weightage given to the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) and the Indian School Certificate Examinations (ICSE) students, and that this adversely affected them.
The Division Bench added that the government had acted beyond the recommendations that had been made by its own expert committee, on the basis of which the earlier prospectus was prepared.
During the hearing, the government’s counsel contended that the prospectus was amended to correct a disparity that the State syllabus students faced. Citing clause 1.6 of the prospectus, the counsel said this gave power to the government to make changes in the prospectus at any point of time, even on the date of publishing the rank list. Moreover, the new formula of 5:3:2 (for Maths, Physics and Chemistry, instead of the old 1:1:1) was chosen from among the five options that an expert committee proposed in order to create a level playing field.
The counsel for the respondents argued that the sudden change of the prospectus that was made without disclosing any compelling public interest or data-backed justification unfairly benefited the State syllabus students, while putting those who pursued the CBSE and the ICSE syllabus at a disadvantage.
The counsel further said that the earlier method of assigning equal value to all three core subjects was adopted since 2011 and that the committee had not endorsed any change of norms for KEAM 2025. The committee had instead advised that the new 5:3:2 formula be tested thoroughly before implementation. Moreover, there was no evidence to show that the older method that was being followed for the past 14 years caused injustice.
Published – July 10, 2025 07:26 pm IST