BREAKING: Kerala High Court Upholds Order Cancelling KEAM Result; Dismisses State's Appeal

The Kerala High Court on Thursday (July 9) upheld a single judge's order which set aside the Kerala Engineering Architecture and Medical (KEAM) exam results.

The court thus dismissed the state government's appeal against the order, adding that it was after considering the rival contentions that the single judge had "interfered with the government order" and disposed of the writ petitions with observations and directions.

A division bench of Justice Anil K Narendran and Justice Muralee Krishna S in its order dictated: 

"Having considered pleadings and material on record and submissions, we notice that the process for entrance examination for admission to professional courses in year 2025 commenced based on the prospectus published by the State...After issuance of the prospectus, the decision was taken, based on the request made by the Commissioner of Entrance Examinations, which was made even prior to the issuance of the prospectus, in November 2024, thereby a modified standardization process was adopted for fixing the rank of candidates. Though various arguments have been advanced, we find that the report of the standardization review committee which has been relied on by counsel on both sides would make it explicit that the committee has opined that introducing a new formula or making any modification to the existing one would be possible only after thorough and detailed study...The committee concluded that implementing a new formula by this year is not feasible however the committee recommended that for present year number of years be reduced to five for calculation of standard deviation. The committee suggested to revise the existing 50:50 ratio currently applied to a new ratio of 60:40...A reading of the report of standardization review committee, which was relied on by the Advocate General, would not in any manner support the decision now taken by the government for adopting an entirely different standardization procedure". 

The bench upheld the decision of the single judge and said that it "finds no ground to interfere" with reasoning of the single judge. 

The court thus dismissed the appeal by state. 

"We will deal with all decisions in judgement," the court orally said. 

Disparity to state syllabus students was sought to be remedied through amended prospectus

During the hearing the advocate general appearing for State government argued, "Originally, equal weightage was given to all subjects. As per amended prospectus, weightage was given in the ratio of 5:3:2 for Maths, Physics and Chemistry". 

"Formula for standardisation was approved by the expert committee. The disparity to state syllabus students was sought to be remedied by the amendment to the prospectus," he said. 

He referred to a report submitted by the expert committee constituted for reviewing standardisation with respect to the exam and said,"Option 3 among the 5 options" submitted by the expert committee was selected by the Govt. and prospectus was amended.

He submitted that the new formula was adopted to remedy an injustice. 

In the appeal, the government has stated that it is empowered to make modifications, additions and deletions to the prospectus as per Clause 1.6 of the prospectus, contrary to the finding of the Single Judge. The amendment was made since it was found to be absolutely necessary to offer a level playing field for all the aspirants and only after the expert committee reviewed the standardization process, the state government has stated.

It is also stated in the appeal that standardisation formula and its modification come within the domain of the State government and the Single Bench ought not to have interfered in the same.

The appeal also challenged the finding of the Single Judge that the formula was changed only to benefit the students from the Kerala stream when the authorities found that these students did not perform well in the entrance examination. In appeal, the Government has defended the action taken as bona fide and intended to remove the disparity created with the earlier formula.

It is stated in the appeal that no comparison was made by the Government or the Commissioner of Entrance Examinations to see if any group of students were benefitted or adversely affected.

Change in prospectus at this stage wrong

Meanwhile a counsel appearing for one of the respondents argued, "Entrance exam was scheduled in April in the meanwhile, plus 12 results was there. After the results came, options were called for all the candidates to upload their marks so that normalisation process could commence...this happened because till 2011, admissions were purely on basis of entrance examinations". 

"There were then allegations that students of CBSE and ICSE streams would get better ranks...core subjects were initially Maths, Physics and Chemistry. Marks were used in ratio of 50:50. Since there were different streams a method was used for normalising marks for which expert committee was appointed. Method was being practised till last year. New method was introduced in 2011 to add the marks of the core subjects, i.e., Maths, Physics, Chemistry," he said. 

Respondent's counsel said that the marks in all subjects used to have the same value till last year. He explained that 50:50 ratio was given to entrance marks and subject marks. He said that this year also the process began with equal weightage given to marks for all subjects. 

He said that this year also the process started when the government issued an order that amending the prospectus. 

The court at this stage orally asked, "The letter from Commissioner of Examination mentioning need for standardisation was much before the issuance of prospectus and the Govt Order amending prospectus?" to which the counsel respondend in the affirmative. 

He said, "In November 2024 the commissioner told the government that a relook is necessary and on 9-4-2025 the government issues this order". 

He further said that the Ranklist was published exactly one hour after the Government published amended prospectus.

"It is impossible to prepare ranklist within such a short period," he argued. The bench however remarked, "It is possible if they were using some software to prepare the ranklist". 

Counsel however said that data had already been collected earlier.  He said that as per the prospectus, Maths, Physics and Chemistry had same value since 2011. He said that now it has been changed to 5:3:2. He further said that earlier values for all subjects was the same. 

Counsel said that the expert committee had recommended that status quo be maintained this year and new formula can be used after a detailed testing. He said that the committee recommended changing of the current 50:50 ratio of entrance and subject marks to 60:40 but never recommended the 5:3:2 ratio for Maths, Physics, Chemistry

The Court at this stage asked,"These are two changes introduced?"

The counsel however said, "It was suggested (by committee)... So obviously there is some other interest". 

CBSE's submissions

Meanwhile a counsel appearing for CBSE in a connected matter, argued that the formula originally framed in 2011 which has been holding the field has been changed in its entirety.

"Fixation of ratio into 5:3:2 is not a mandate of the committee at all. There was no recommendation by the committee from where the government has decided to adopt a new formula. The only reason stated in government order that committee made a suggestion that reason falls to the ground," he said.  

What prompted the government to come out with new formula has not been disclosed, the counsel said. 

"Government cannot suddenly change a formula which has been used for the last 14 years unless it can be shown that it has resulted in injustice," he said. 

There is nothing on record to indicate that the decision was taken by government due to "compelling public interest", the counsel added. 

At this stage the court asked the advocate general about the recommendation on the change of ratio to 5:3:2, adding that normally, the government acts on the recommendation of an expert committee.

The advocate general said, "Every option was considered. All that is required is to see whether it was made in an arbitrary manner or affects the rights of any person. That is not being shown while applying the present formula". 

Background

The Government of Kerala has moved an appeal before the Kerala High Court challenging the Single Bench decision that set aside the KEAM (Kerala Engineering Architecture and Medical) exam results.

The learned Single Judge had found that the amendment made to the prospectus for the examination, just one hour before the publication of the rank list, was unjustified, illegal and arbitrary.

In the amended prospectus, it was stated that the entrance examination marks and class examination marks should be maintained in 50:50 ratio, but in respect of the Maths, Physics, and Chemistry, the marks obtained in +2 examination shall be in the ratio of 5:3:2. However, according to the original prospectus, the ratio for these subjects were 1:1:1.

This change was challenged in the writ petition as being unfairly disadvantageous to students of CBSE/ICSE syllabus and beneficial to the students of the Kerala syllabus.

The Single Bench had set aside the amended prospectus as well as the published rank list. A direction was also made to publish a new rank list in accordance with the original, unamended prospectus.

The present writ appeal was filed by the Government of Kerala to set aside the decision of the Single Bench. 

Case Title: State of Kerala v. Hana Fatima Ahinus

Case No: WA 1702/2025 

Citation: 2025 LiveLaw (Ker) 406