IIT-K: Allot seats to those who answered as per norms

Justice S Vaidyanathan who allowed a petition moved by R Lakshmanan on behalf of his minor daughter Lakshmi Sree, said, “Without rendering any finding on the answers given by the candidates, this court is of the view that candidates who have assigned numerical values as answers, which are rounded off to two decimal places, as per the original instructions given by the IIT, Kanpur, during the examination, will have to be given preference over candidates, who have also given correct answers by rounding off the numerical values to one decimal place or without any decimal notation.” 

Also, observing that decimal notation is very important, as it not only tests the answers given by the students, but also their shrewdness in reading the entire instructions and writing answers, the judge held, “By giving such preference, the total numbers of candidates, who have been selected are not going to be affected, instead, their ranking alone will be changed.” 

The petitioner contended that during the exam, candidates were instructed to answer in correct numerical value in decimal notation rounded off to the second decimal place and full marks will be given only if answered as per the instructions. Based on this, most of the candidates including his daughter have read the instructions carefully and spent time to answer the questions by entering the correct numerical value in decimal notation, rounding off to the second decimal place.

However, some of the candidates, without reading the instructions carefully, have given answer’s not up to the second decimal, which is against the instructions given during the examination. But subsequently, the authorities concerned made a clarification in 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.

Claiming if marks are awarded to candidates, who have not strictly followed the instructions, it will affect the marks and ranks of candidates like that of his daughter, the petitioner had sought for a direction to the authorities to follow only the instructions given during the examination and not to follow the clarification given after the examination.

IIT, Kanpur, in its counter had submitted that the clarification issued by it, in no way, changes, alters or adds to the instructions given to the candidates at the time of attempting the question papers.

To the contrary, the same only explains the manner of evaluation and in fact, the results of JEE (Advanced) 2018 have been published on June 10, 2018 and the evaluation has been done based on instructions given to the candidates prior to the examination.