Vaibhav Ganjapure, TNN Jan 8, 2013, 02.26AM IST NAGPUR: The University Grants Commission (UGC) on Monday came under fire from the Nagpur bench of Mumbai high court for its failure to come clear on the issue of fixing eligibility criteria for the National Eligibility Test (NET). A division bench comprising justices AP Lavande and Arun Chaudhari granted two weeks to the apex education body as the final chance to decide its policy. The judges further warned that it will proceed with orders, if UGC fails to file a reply within the stipulated period, and asked UGC officials to be present at the next hearing.
The court's stringent orders came while hearing a plea filed by Gokulpeth resident Sayalee Surjuse, who has challenged a UGC notification imposing minimum qualifying criteria for NET conducted on June 24 last year. The test is conducted simultaneously across the country for various subjects for lectureship and junior research fellowship (JRF). Citing UGC's notification on its website, petitioner's counsel Trupti Udeshi said the candidate had to score 40% in first two pears and 50% in the third. She contended that there was no mention of the necessity to score above a specified aggregate of all three papers, which will be the criteria for final qualification. She also said that this criteria was never communicated till the declaration of the result. When NET results were declared on September 18, Sayalee was declared failed. It was only after she enquired that she came to know that UGC had fixed 65% aggregate criteria for the qualification. She claimed to have scored 59.43% aggregate in all three papers and also cleared them individually. Citing scheme of exam by UGC, she demanded that she should be declared successful. She sought directives from the court to quash the UGC notification of June 24 fixing the eligibility criteria NET at 65% aggregate for general category by holding it arbitrary, illegal and unsustainable in law. The judges pulled up UGC for its lacklustre approach to the plight of candidates from Maharashtra, stating that the apex body had not responded properly to a case based on the same grounds in other states. In Kerala, the HC had ruled in favour of candidates by quashing the UGC notification, as the number of candidates were much more. http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2013-01-08/nagpur/36216041_1_ugc-notification-ugc-officials-three-papers Register at the dedicated AccessIndia list for discussing accessibility of mobile phones / Tabs on: http://mail.accessindia.org.in/mailman/listinfo/mobile.accessindia_accessindia.org.in Search for old postings at: http://www.mail-archive.com/accessindia@accessindia.org.in/ To unsubscribe send a message to accessindia-requ...@accessindia.org.in with the subject unsubscribe. To change your subscription to digest mode or make any other changes, please visit the list home page at http://accessindia.org.in/mailman/listinfo/accessindia_accessindia.org.in
