Court backs Kerala’s revised engineering admission policy: Why it rejected CBSE students’ challenge

“The wisdom of the government in identifying and evolving methodologies for examination, and the correctness of policies adopted by it are ordinarily not amenable to judicial review. Such policies can be interfered with only if it is demonstrated that the policy is contrary to any statutory provision or the Constitution of India, or is so absurd that no reasonable or prudent person could have adopted it,” the court said on June 8.

Justice Bechu Kurian Thomas said that in academic matters, judicial review should be resorted to only in exceptional circumstances.

The high court ruled that the government’s decision to adopt a Tamil Nadu-style normalisation model was a valid exercise aimed at ensuring parity among students from different educational boards.

Judicial review only in exceptional matters

• The court ought not to substitute or supplant its judgment or views for that of the body entrusted with the power to take decisions on academic matters, especially those relating to the method of evaluation of answer sheets, the judge observed.
• Merely because there can be minor errors in a system of examination and evaluation introduced by the government, the court ought not to sit in judgment over the wisdom of such a scheme or system unless serious prejudice is expressly shown to exist in the new scheme or method.
• As long as a body entrusted with the power to identify a methodology for conduct and evaluation of an examination acts within the sphere of its authority, without arbitrariness or malafides or other extrinsic reasons, the court should always refrain from interfering, lest the whole process gets jeopardised.
• In academic matters, judicial review should be resorted to only in exceptional circumstances.
• As the court is not an expert, it should be loath to interfere with the decisions of the academic bodies, unless there is ex facie arbitrariness or malafides involved.
• Similarly, in matters of policy also, the court should be reluctant to interfere, unless the policy is patently absurd or malafide (malicious).

Dispute

The challenge centred on the government’s decision to replace the earlier standardisation system with a new normalisation formula for preparing engineering rank lists.

The petitioners argued that Kerala had followed a standardisation procedure since 2012 to maintain uniformity among students from different boards, including the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE), Indian Certificate of Secondary Education (ICSE) and the Kerala State Board.

According to them, the government introduced a new methodology after the 2025 admission process without conducting any detailed expert evaluation.

They alleged that the decision was based solely on recommendations from an internal committee and that it departed from the views expressed by an earlier review committee, which had suggested that a comprehensive study should precede any major change.

The students further contended that the revised formula could adversely affect candidates from certain boards and, therefore, deserved judicial scrutiny.

Government defends new formula

The state government and the commissioner for entrance examinations opposed the petitions, arguing that the previous standardisation method itself had generated complaints because it often resulted in the downward revision of marks secured by students from boards with higher statistical averages.

According to the government, an internal committee comprising the commissioner for entrance examinations, the director of technical education and the director of the State Council of Educational Research and Training (SCERT) reviewed the existing system and found that it placed students from some boards at a disadvantage.

The committee recommended replacing the earlier standardisation model with a normalisation system similar to the one followed in Tamil Nadu.

The government accepted the recommendation through an order issued on December 26, 2025, and incorporated the changes in the 2026 prospectus before inviting applications.

How the new system works

• Under the revised scheme, engineering admissions continue to be based on equal weightage of entrance examination scores and qualifying examination marks.
• The final rank list is prepared by giving a 50 per cent weightage to the KEAM entrance examination score and 50 per cent weightage to Class 12 marks.
• For the qualifying examination component, marks obtained in mathematics, physics and chemistry are considered in the ratio of 5:3:2.
• The key change is in the normalisation process.
• The highest mark secured in a particular subject by a student of a specific board is treated as 100, and all other students’ marks are scaled proportionately against that benchmark.
• The government argued that this ensures that no student’s marks are reduced during the normalisation process and that the system adequately accounts for differences in difficulty levels and evaluation patterns among various educational boards.

Court finds no arbitrariness

• After examining the records, the high court noted that the new normalisation system does not result in any downward revision of marks.
• The court observed that although there may be situations where students from a particular board do not receive a corresponding increase in marks, that consequence depends upon the highest marks obtained within the board and does not by itself establish unfairness.
• Justice Thomas held that the petitioners had failed to demonstrate any arbitrariness, prejudice or constitutional infirmity in the revised methodology.
• The court also rejected the argument that the internal committee lacked the expertise required to recommend such a change.
• They are well versed with entrance examinations and the field of education and cannot be held to be incompetent to review the system, the court said.

TN model already judicially approved

The judgment noted that the normalisation model adopted by Kerala is not a new or untested system. It has been in use in Tamil Nadu since 2007 after that state abolished the common entrance examination for professional courses.

The court referred to a judgment of the Madras High Court in Minor S Aswin Kumar v State of Tamil Nadu, which had upheld the same concept of normalisation and found it to be fair, transparent and non-exploitative.

According to the Kerala High Court, the Tamil Nadu experience reinforced the government’s position that the methodology was neither arbitrary nor discriminatory.

Class 12 students’ plea not maintainable

One of the writ petitions had been filed by two students who were still studying in Class 12. The high court held that they lacked the legal standing to challenge the 2026 prospectus because they were not eligible to appear for the entrance examination in 2026.

However, since the connected petition had been filed by students who were eligible engineering aspirants, the court proceeded to examine the merits of the broader challenge.

Petitions dismissed

Concluding that the government was fully empowered to modify the admission methodology and that the new normalisation formula did not suffer from any legal infirmity, the Kerala High Court dismissed both petitions.

The verdict clears the way for KEAM 2026 admissions to proceed under the revised normalisation framework and is likely to impact thousands of engineering aspirants across Kerala seeking admission through the state entrance process.