The Delhi High Court on Monday sought response of the Central Government in a petition challenging the policy for IIT-JEE (Mains) which gives 40 per cent weightage of class XII board marks while deciding the All India Rank for admissions in top engineering colleges, including the National Institute of Technologies.
In the petition filed by a student Arnav Ohri who appeared in the IIT-JEE Mains 2013, Justice VK Jain issued notices to the Human Resource Development Ministry, Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE), which conducts the entrance test, JEE Apex Board and JEE Interface Group. The court asked them to respond within two months.
The policy, known as the 'normalisation procedure', was introduced by the HRD Minister Kapil Sibal and has been a controversial matter ever since. The petition urges that the Government, while adopting the procedure, "has ignored the vital fact that students appear from several boards in India like the CBSE, ICSE, and State Boards like Bihar board, UP board and others which have different curriculums, system of examinations and marking schemes. Therefore, giving 40 per cent weightage to the XII board exams is arbitrary and unconstitutional."
The new policy was announced by the JEE Interface Group last month explaining the normalization procedure adopted to prepare the All India Rank of the candidates taking the JEE (Mains) examination for the academic year 2013-2014. Counsel for the petitioner urged that while formulating such a policy the HRD ministry ignored the fact that it’s not just the CBSE but there are other boards functioning across the country.