The Kerala High court today declaredas illegal the new norms fixed by UGC for the NationalEligiblity Test (NET) for college and university lectureship.
"The power of UGC ought to have been excercised in aproper, fair and reasonable manner," Justice T R RamachandranNair held while allowing a batch of petitions challenging thenew norms.
The court held that fixing of higher aggregate marks forthree categories, that too just before the announcements ofresults, cannot be justified as the same was "not supportableby law".
It also declared that all those who have obtained minimummarks prescribed in the notification have cleared NET andappropriate follow up action be taken to issue certificates tothem within one month.
By changing the standards at the final stage and justbefore declaration of results, "it can be definitely be seenthat it affected adversely the expectations of a large numberof candidates", the court said.
As per the new norms, candidates in general category haveto score aggregate of 65 per cent in all three NET papers tobe eligible for college and university lectureship while OBCcandidates need to score 60 per cent and SC/ST candidates 55per cent.
Previous norms had stipulated that the general categoryhad to get 40 per cent in Paper I and Paper II and 50 per centin Paper III. In case of OBC, SC/ST students, the qualifyingpercentage was 35, 35, 45 and 35, 35, 40 in all three papers.
The declaration of new norms had been opposed by studentswho appeared in the examination in June this year.