NET : court declines stay

A Division Bench of the Kerala High Court on Tuesday declined to stay a single judge’s order quashing the University Grants Commission’s (UGC)’s new eligibility criteria for the National Eligibility Test.

The Bench comprising Chief Justice Manjula Chellur and Justice K. Vinod Chandran posted an appeal filed by the UGC to February 5 for final hearing.

The Single Judge had also directed the UGC to grant certificates to candidates who had obtained the minimum mark prescribed earlier.

UGC's contention

The UGC contended that the court had no right to make a declaration regarding the result of a test. The original notification had clearly stated that the candidates should obtain minimum required marks in each paper separately.

It had also been said that the qualifying criteria for Junior Research Fellowship and eligibility for lectureship would be decided by the UGC before the declaration of results. It was a moderation committee appointed by the UGC and consisting of senior academicians that had recommended that the general, OBC (non-creamy layer) and the SC/ST candidates would be required to obtain an aggregate percentage of 65, 60 and 55 respectively in addition to the paper-wise minimum percentage as qualifying criteria, the UGC said.

Within powers

The appeal said that in order to maintain high standard in education, prescription of an aggregate percentage in an examination was well within the powers of the UGC.

Prescribing the qualifying criteria by fixing an aggregate percentage could not be called change of rules in the middle of the test. No new criterion was introduced by the UGC.

http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/tp-kerala/net-court-declines-stay/article4334650.ece