Gujarat High Court: Deciding the fate of lakhs of students appearing for Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) for the year 2014-15, the Court, while acting on a PIL for declaring a method for preparation of merit-list of students by the Admission Committee for Professional Courses (in short, the ACPC) in the Engineering Courses (B.Tech course), held that “the percentile method” should be followed for preparation of the merit list. It being a recognised method, the Court cannot interfere with the policy decision adopted by the delegated legislation i.e. the B. Tech (Regulation of Admission and Payment of Fees) Rules, 2013 (in short, the Rules). ACPC, following the opinion of the experts, has deviated from the procedure prescribed by the delegated legislation for preparation of merit list on the ground that the same would be beneficial to the students of Gujarat Board. Citing its earlier order dt. 23-07-2013 in Special Civil Applications No. 9960/10150/10577/10586/11030 0f 2013, the Court reiterated that the formula disclosed in the above order should be applied for preparing the merit list based on Rule 11 of the Rules, and that in case of tie, sub-rule 2 of Rule 11 should be applied.
In the said order, the “percentile method” for preparing the merit list in accordance with the existing rules, as reiterated by the Court reads as follows: “the total marks obtained by a candidate will be A + B where: A is the percentage of actual marks obtained by a candidate in his Board Examination multiplied by percentile given by that Board in respect of that candidate in comparison to all the similar candidates appearing in that Board Examination irrespective of the fact whether they have registered in this process of selection or not multiplied by .06 and B is the percentage of marks actually obtained by that candidate in JEE multiplied by percentile given to that candidate with reference to the performance of all the persons appearing in JEE irrespective of the fact whether they have registered in this process of selection or not multiplied by 0.4”. It was held that accordingly, State-Respondent has to adopt the same unless the Rules are amended by appropriate legislation by the appropriate delegated authority in the meantime. Vinod Pandya v. State of Gujarat, Writ Petition (PIL) No. 175 of 2014, decided on 20 June, 2014
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