Madras HC dismisses petition challenging results of SET

The petitioners had challenged the results on the ground of a change in eligibility criteria for recruitment of lecturers in colleges, universities in TN and Puducherry

The Madras high court dismissed over 150 petitions challenging the results of State Eligibility Test (SET) conducted by Bharathiyar University and National Eligibility Test by University Grants Commission in 2012.

The petitioners had challenged the results on the ground of a change in eligibility criteria for recruitment of lecturers in colleges and universities in Tamil Nadu and Puducherry.

Justice K K Sasidharan said the legality and correctness of the qualifying examination conducted by the UGC, reserving the right to fix the final eligibility criteria after declaring results, had already been decided by the Supreme Court. The judge said that in view of the finding of the apex court that there was no illegality in prescribing such condition, these petitions challenging the very same procedure adopted for determining the eligibility by the UGC and Bharathiyar University were liable to be dismissed.

Once the UGC and Bharathiyar University published their results for junior research fellowship and eligibility for lecturership in universities and colleges, the UGC released a press note that in addition to the minimum marks which the candidates were supposed to obtain individually in three papers, candidates were required to obtain aggregate marks of 65 per cent for general category, 60 per cent for OBC and 55 per cent for SC/ST and the persons with disabilities.