Delhi High Court rejects plea challenging normalisation procedure adopted for JEE Mains

The Delhi High Court recently dismissed a plea challenging the ‘normalisation’ procedure adopted in the Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) Mains exam [Setu Vinit Goenka v National Testing Agency & Anr]. .Normalisation is a procedure undertaken by the National Testing Agency (NTA). It compares a candidate's scores across the question papers of multiple sessions so that a student is not deprived or given advantage by the difficulty level of a particular session's exam.In an order passed on February 27, Justice C Hari Shankar rejected in limine (at the threshold) the plea filed by one Setu Vinit Goenka against the normalisation procedure.The Court said that normalisation irons out the discrepancy which arises because of the unavoidable possibility of different papers being of different difficulty levels.“This Court does not possess the expertise to subjectively go into the intricacies of the normalisation procedure. These are matters of academic policy, in which the Court has to defer to the authorities, unless the procedure is found to be so arbitrary or resulting in constitutionally unsustainable results which the court does not uphold at any cost. No such case has been made out in the averments contained in the present writ petition,” the Court said..The single-judge was of the view that courts must be conscious even while issuing notice in cases like the present one where lakhs of students are involved.“The very fact that an examination such as the IIT JEE, which governs entrance to IITs, NITs and other centrally funded technical institutions, may be subject matter of a Court proceeding, is itself a serious issue. It also creates uncertainty in the minds of students who attempt the papers. Courts have, therefore, to be extremely careful even while issuing notice in such cases. It is only if the procedure being followed is constitutionally completely unacceptable that such cases deserve issuance of notice,” Justice Hari Shankar observed..The petitioner Setu Vinit Goenka approached the High Court arguing that the normalisation process is unjust and unfair for students.It was stated that normalisation factor is not disclosed by the NTA.He further contended that normalisation should not be a ground for judging the performance of any student as they all appear for the same exam through different shifts randomly allocated by NTA.The Court was told that the raw scores of a candidate differ from the percentile scores which are ultimately assigned to students based on normalisation..The plea was contested by the NTA which argued that a total of 12 lakh candidates appear for the JEE exam and to ensure complete transparency, it is not possible to provide the same question paper to all candidates in the country.NTA contended that normalisation on percentile basis is a detailed statistical process followed around the world..The Court after considering the rival submissions concluded that the plea was speculative in nature and rejected the same..Advocate Arun Sharma appeared for petitioner Setu Vinit Goenka.Advocates Apoorv Kurup, Nidhi Mittal, Gauri Gobardhan, Akhil Hasija and Muskaan Gupta appeared for the NTA.Advocates Shiva Lakshmi and Archana Kumari represented the Union of India..[Read Judgment]