Sunday, August 29 2010
HC Benches Take Conflicting Stands On Five-Mark Plus-Two Biology Answer

Chennai: Thanks to conflicting judicial stands taken by judges in the principal bench here and the Madurai bench of the Madras high court on a dispute over evaluation of the Plus Two biology paper, the fate of 31 medical seats in the state is hanging in the balance.

Now, the government may be left with no option but to re-evaluate the answer papers of all students who wrote biology paper in the last public examination. Worse, it is also possible that the entire MBBS/BDS counselling will have to be redone. The matter relates to question no. 32 in biology paper. Carrying five marks, the descriptive-type question was about the arrangement of human chromosomes. The key answer provided by the authorities was drawn from the prescribed text book. Twenty-three students, who answered differently and hence were denied marks, approached the Madurai bench seeking full marks.

When the matter came up before a single judge, the government submitted an expert opinion supporting its key answer. Not satisfied, the judge named three experts to go into the issue. The three experts came out with three different views. While one said the government’s key answer was correct, another said students’ answer was partly correct. The third said the key answer was wrong. The single judge concluded that students’ answers were partly correct, and hence they should be given marks accordingly. As an interim ruling, the judge directed the authorities to keep 23 medical seats vacant to accommodate those students.

When the authorities appealed against the ruling, a division bench gave a new twist to the whole issue, by ruling that the key answer was wrong and hence students were entitled to the full marks. The government filed a review application before the same bench.

In the meanwhile, another single bench in Chennai, on petitions by eight other students, asked the authorities to reserve eight more seats. The government then filed an appeal before the first bench comprising Chief Justice M Yusuf Eqbal and Justice TS Sivagnanam.

If the order is given effect, the authorities cannot restrict the revaluation only to the petitioners. Every student who had attempted question no. 32 will have to be given the benefit. This will, ultimately, necessitate fresh counselling and admissions for all MBBS and BDS seats on offer.

Appearing for the government, Additional advocate-general P Wilson questioned whether it was permissible for the court to take the task of examiner/selection board upon itself and examine the discrepancies and inconsistencies in the question and valuation. The first bench posted the matter before a single judge.

Now that the case is before a single judge again, at least three rounds of litigations need to be completed before September 30, which is the national deadline to complete all admission-related formalities for MBBS and BDS courses.