Plea against "normalisation procedure" in Eng admission

The Centre and CBSE were today directed by the Delhi High Court to respond to a plea challenging the government's assessment process for admission to undergraduate engineering programmes in top institutes including IIT and NIT.
Issuing notices to HRD ministry, Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) which conducts the entrance test, Justice V K Jain sought their responses on a plea challenging the "normalisation procedure" adopted for admissions in top engineering colleges.
Filing a petition through advocates Aritra Das and Rashi Bansal, an engineering aspirant Arnav Ohri said "while adopting the normalisation procedure, the government has ignored the vital fact that several Boards in India (like CBSE, ICSE, and State Boards like Bihar Board, UP Board) have different curriculum, system of examinations and marking schemes.

"Therefore, giving 40 percent weightage to the XII Board exams is arbitrary and unconstitutional."
This new policy and assessment pattern was introduced by the then HRD minister Kapil Sibal last year and the entrance examinations, including IIT-JEE 2013, were held under this new formula.
In May-June, 2013, the JEE Interface Group issued a notification explaining the normalisation procedure adopted to prepare the All India rank of the candidates taking JEE (Mains) examination for the academic year 2013-2014.
The petitioner in his plea said "as far as competitive examinations are concerned, a candidate's performance in the XIIth board examination had limited value and only to determine whether he is eligible to take a competitive examination or not.

"The normalisation formula, which has been adopted, is a resultant of excessive delegation by the government, to a non statutory body like the CBSE.....