‘CET document verification subject to final orders on pleas’

The High Court of Karnataka on Monday said that the document verification process being conducted by the Karnataka Examinations Authority (KEA) would be subject to further orders to be passed in a batch of petitions filed by Common Entrance Test (CET-2022) repeaters.

Justice S R Krishna Kumar passed this order while adjourning the hearing to August 18.

The petitioners have sought a direction to consider the marks obtained by them in the respective subjects of the qualifying exam, second pre-university of 2020-21, along with marks obtained in CET-2022 in equal proportionality while declaring the ranking. During the hearing, a senior counsel for a batch of petitioners submitted that there is urgency in the matter and requested the court to pass an interim order.

The bench orally observed that the disparity will be there even with or without consideration of second PU marks and said that the authorities will have to do a little more brainstorming to find a solution. Additional Advocate General (AAG) appeared and informed the court that at present KEA is only conducting document verification exercises and the actual counselling has not yet commenced.

“The respondents submitted that the process is at the stage of document verification. The respondents would not start the actual counseling process. It is made clear that document verification done by the respondents would be without prejudice to the rights and contentions of the petitioners and would be subject to further orders of this court,” the court adjourned the matter till August 18.

Over 23,000 students re-appeared for the KCET this year by rejecting their last year’s results. The petitioners before the court contended that it is discriminatory not to consider the 50% marks obtained by them in the second PU exams in 2020-21 and restricting only to marks obtained in CET-2022. The petitioners claimed that the KEA, however, has considered 50% of the performance in the qualifying examination and 50% of the CET-2022 results/performance insofar as the fresh candidates for 2021-22.