Chennai: Respite to IIT-Kanpur on JEE evaluation

CHENNAI: Providing a respite to IIT-Kanpur, a division bench of the Madras High Court has stayed the operation of an order of a single judge directing it to re-do the rank list of JEE Advanced 2018, after giving preference to candidates who answered numerical values rounded off to two decimal points.

When the evaluation of exam had already been done, the order of the single judge is unwarranted, a bench of Justices Huluvadi G Ramesh and Dhandapani said on Tuesday. Originally, L Lakshmi Sree had appeared for JEE Advanced in Chennai on May 20. Lakshmi Sree contended that awarding marks to candidates who had not strictly followed the original instructions would affect the marks and ranks of those who had strictly followed the instructions.

When the appeal came up for hearing, senior counsel Vijay Narayan submitted that the order which has been passed after evaluation of the exam has created much confusion among students and their parents. When the petitioner has already secured a seat of her choice such an order is not necessary, he added.

Fresh rule on numerical values caused concern

During the exam, candidates were instructed to answer in correct numerical value in decimal notation rounded off to the second decimal place. It was made clear that full marks would be given only if answered as per the instructions. The petitioner said that she spent quality time to answer the questions by entering correct numerical value in decimal notation rounding off to second decimal. However, some candidates, without reading the instructions carefully, had answered with one decimal point or without any decimal notation.