Ernakulam: In a major upset for the Kerala state higher education department and the government, Kerala high court cancelled the results of the KEAM (Kerala Engineering Architecture Medical) entrance exam terming it legally invalid.
The verdict was in response to a petition highlighting that changes to the weightage criteria were made after the exam prospectus was released, a move the court deemed legally invalid as it affects the students from other syllabus.
Justice D K Singh delivered the ruling, observing that the revised method of calculating engineering entrance ranks adversely affected students from the CBSE syllabus.
The court’s decision came just as the admission process was about to begin, throwing the entire KEAM engineering admission procedure into uncertainty.
The revised weightage drew strong criticism from CBSE students and parents, who claimed it disproportionately favoured state board students. CBSE students who scored higher across subjects alleged they were still ranked lower due to the uneven weightage. Several petitioners approached the High Court arguing that the changes were discriminatory and that students with higher aggregate marks are penalised without any reason.
The high court ruled that reordering ranks based on the controversial 5:3:2 formula was unjust and directed that the KEAM rankings be annulled and redone using the previous 1:1:1 subject weightage.