HC allows writ appeals by UGC

Kerala High Court today allowed a batch of writ appeals filed by University Grants Commission (UGC) against a single judge verdict on change of criteria for National Eligibility Tests.
During the pendency of appeals, Supreme Court had upheld the UGC stand following which a division bench comprising Chief Justice Manjula Chellur and Justice K Vinod Chandran also upheld the claims of UGC.
Earlier, a single judge had set aside the change of criteria of NET examination of UGC.
Justice Chellur and Justice Chandran said the judgement shall be declaratory and applicable to all students, who appeared for NET exams during June 2012.

In March 2012, the UGC had called for applications for NET exam and in its notification it had prescribed the minimum marks for general category as 40 per cent in papers 1 and 2, and 50 per cent in paper 3.
OBC and SC/ST candidates were given a relaxation of five per cent and 10 per cent respectively.
After the test in June 2012, the UGC had added a clause prescribing 65 per cent aggregate marks in all three subjects for general candidates, 60 per cent for OBC and 55 per cent for SC/ST as final qualifying criteria.
Nearly 12,000 students approached High Court challenging change of criteria.