CHENNAI : The Madras High Court has directed the Indian Institute of Technology in Kanpur (IIT-K) to give preference to candidates who have answered in exact numerical value in decimal notation, rounding off to second decimal place, to candidates who answered by rounding off values to one decimal point or without any decimal notation in the Joint Entrance Examination Advanced (JEE Advanced-2018).Justice S Vaidyanathan gave the directive while allowing a writ petition from L Lakshmi Sree, who wrote the JEE in Chennai on May 20.
Petitioner said candidates were instructed to answer in correct numerical value in decimal notation rounded off to the second decimal place. Full marks are to be given only if answered as per the instructions. According to petitioner, as per the instructions, 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, she added.
Subsequently, the authorities concerned made a clarification on their website stating that “If an answer is the integer 11, all the answers entered as 11, 11.0, or 11.00 will be correct.”The petitioner wrote an e-mail to the authorities concerned on June 1 stating that awarding marks to candidates who had not strictly followed the original instructions would affect the marks and ranks of those who had followed the instructions spending time. Since there was no reply from the authorities, she filed the present petition.
Admitting the plea on June 7 and passing an interim order, the court had directed the authorities to evaluate papers based only on original instructions and if evaluation was made based on the clarification, allotment of seats should not be made till further orders.When the plea was taken up for final hearing on July 2 last, the authorities argued that evaluation in both ways would not alter the total number of candidates selected.The judge allowed the petition and gave the directive after holding that by giving preference to candidates like the petitioner, the total number of candidates who had been selected, was not going to be affected. Their rankings alone will get changed.