KCET 2022 Row: KEA To Take Repeaters' 50% PUC Marks into Consideration; Orders Karnataka High Court

New Delhi: The Karnataka High Court has granted the repeaters' appeals and ordered the Karnataka Examination Authority (KEA) to take into account 50% of their qualifying exam (QE) or PUC scores while determining their CET ranks, which is a great relief for all the KCET 2022 repeaters.

The HC has also ordered the KEA to reevaluate the KCET rankings for admission to undergraduate engineering and technology programmes for the academic year 2022–2023, in accordance with Rules 3 and 4 of the Karnataka Selection of Candidates for Admission to Government Seats in Professional Educational Institutions.

Earlier, on August 2, the Karnataka High Court received a petition from CET repeaters asking for consideration of 50% of QE scores when determining CET rankings.

However, the Karnataka Examination Authority on July 30 issued an order indicating that for the KCET candidates of 2021 who appeared in 2022, only 100% of CET marks will be taken into account, which is due to the fact that in 2021, the CET evaluation was only based on 100% of CET results as against the norm of 50% of QE or PUC/class 12 marks and 50% of CET score.

The decision was made to solely take into account 100% of the CET result after the government promoted all the 2nd PUC students owing to Covid-19 without conducting the examination and evaluating based on SSLC, first PU, and internal evaluation marks.

However, Justice Krishna Kumar, who was hearing the case, quashed the July 30 order of the KEA — the day that CET rankings were also released — citing that the bulletin issued by the KEA clearly prescribes for eligibility to gain admission by taking both II PUC/XII standard marks and CET marks in equal proportion

It also stated that there is absolutely no mention as to not considering II PUC/XII standard marks for CET ranking for the academic year 2022–23 in the entire bulletin The HC further noted that the ‘impugned’ order of the KEA is ‘unreasoned’, ‘non-speaking’, ‘cryptic’ and it doesn't disclose any ‘application of mind’.

The HC observed that failing to accept the II PUC/XII standard marks could have "absurd" repercussions.

Further, the KEA argued that including repeaters for 50% of QE marks would be unfair to CET freshmen in 2022 and CET candidates in 2021.

The HC responded by stating that the KEA's argument cannot be used to interpret Rule 4's proviso (which calls for evaluating 50% of the CET and 50% of the II PUC for CET ranking) or to determine whether the impugned note is legitimate, valid, or legal.

This year, a total of 2,10,829 candidates took up the CET 2022 exam. However, over 25,000 2021 CET candidates retook the exam in 2022 in an effort to improve their results this year.

As a backup plan, several candidates decided to drop out to focus on NEET 2022 and CET. Despite having a higher CET score than freshmen, the repeaters' position actually fell dramatically.

According to one of the freshmen, who received a rank of 24443 in the CET 2022, remarked that the decision is incredibly disheartening and his ranking could increase by a thousand points following the reevaluation. There isn't much tension, and it won't be until the re-evaluation is complete that he has a clear image.

However, he stated that rather than using COMEDK , he might still apply for admission using the CET rating.

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