Source The hindu 11/01/2013
KOCHI: A Division Bench of the Kerala High Court on Thurs-day posted for final hearing on January 2I an appeal filed by the UGC against a single judge's verdict quashing the new qualifying criteria pre-scribed by the UGC in the Na-tional Eligibility Test for lectureships.The single judge had heid that the UGC regulations did not confer any right on the UGC to fix a high mark after holding the NET. Nor could such criteria be introduced through regulation just be-fore the announcement of the resuits by executive orders. The introduction of the new criteria was not support-ed by the law. As per the new criteria, candidates in the general category who had scored an aggregate of 65 per cent for all the three papers would be eligible for lecture-ship. While the OBC candi-dates needed 60 per cent, the SC/ST candidates needed 55 aa per cenl.The single judge had also declared that the petitioners who had obtained separate minimum marks prescribed in the UGC notification had cleared the NET. The court had ordered that they should be given the necessary certif-icates in a month. When the appeal came up for hearing before the Bench comprising Chief Justice Manjula Chellur and Justice K.Vinod Chandran, counsel for the UGC S.Krishnamoor-thy contended that the High Court had no right to make a declaration regarding the re-sult of a test.It had been clearly stated in the original notification that the candidates should obtain minimum required marks in each paper separately. It had also been said that the qual-ifring criteria for Junior Re-search Fellowship and eligibiiity for lectureship would be decided by the UGC before the declaration of results. It was a moderation com-mittee appointed by the UGC and consisting of senior aca-demicians who had recom-mended that the general.OBC (non-creamy layer) and the SC/ST candidates wouldbe required to obtain an ag-gregate percentage of 65, 60 and 55 respectively in addi-tion to the paper-wise mini-mum percentage asqualifoing criteria. The notiflcation had clear-ly said that the final cut-off marks shall be decided by the commission before the decla-ration of results. The single judge's ruling would Iower the standard of education.The appeal said that in or-der to maintain hig! stan-dards in education, prescription of an aggregate percentage in an examination was well within the powers of the UGC.Prescribing the qualiffing criteria by flxing an aggregate percentage could not be called change of rules in themiddle of the test