Arbitrary cut off in NET June 2012 Exam

The Cause

UGC is taking NET (National Eligibility Test) exam twice a year for lectureship positions all over India. According to the original notification and trends in last few years, criteria for passing NET has been 40%, 40%, and 50% in paper 1, 2 and 3 respectively for gen students. Their last minute specification (after publishing the result) that an aggregate of 65 per cent (an arbitrary and discriminatory cut off) in three papers was necessary for qualification for general category candidates has demolished the wishes of more than 100000 wishes all over. UGC declared the criteria after the declaration of the result which is totally unlawful and breach to the constitutional right to equality.

Students have protested all over including New Delhi at ‘Jantar Mantar’ on 30-31 Jan, 2013 for this arbitrary norm followed by UGC. Students have already won the case against this in Kerala High Court. According to Justice Ramachandra Nair, KHC (Kerala High Court) "Rules of a game can not be changed in the middle or at last of a game". And the result since it is a public cause so it would be applicable to all the students all over India. Also Court has directed UGC to take appropriate action as soon as possible and give the students certificates within one month from the date when they receive the judgment copy. The judgment copy has already been received by UGC on Jan 5, 2013 and one month period would over on 5th Feb, 2013 itself.

Cases in different High Courts

There are more then 25 cases in various high courts all over India like Patna, Gwalior, Kerala, Bangalore, Chennai, Raipur, New Delhi, Lucknow, Dehradun, Bombay, Nagpur etc... Many of them (cases) are in double bench as well. In the coming days we are going to win this in double bench also in few of the high courts. Now UGC is dragging the matter since they have money taken from students (just for example in NET June 2012, No. of students: 4 Lacs, on an avg. they are taking 300 frm each of us) UGC is willingly delaying the court procedure and not giving justice to the students who actually have scored much better than the criteria mentioned in the original notification in June 2012. They are misutilising the Public Money and it can not be supported by law.

There are various issues regarding a new Supplementary Result. Without their notification they again gave a supplementary result which was a baseless act and not supported by even their notification June 2012. The notification June 2012 does not say anything about the supplementary result. There has not been any clarification on this issue. Without any prior notice UGC cannot publish any supplementary result. Your officer says that subject wise cut off has been followed and 7% in each subjects have been passed. The matter of subject wise cut off is to be followed in coming Dec examination which is not valid for the examination in June 2012 without any notification. There are many students who have passed in this supplementary result who have much less than the specified criteria as per their increased criteria i.e. aggregate 65% (gen), aggregate 60%(OBC) and aggregate 55% (SC/ST). Many people below these criteria perhaps are the in laws or have some good reference in UGC.

UGC has manipulated the criteria after publishing the results. It seems that the students near and dear ones have passed due to their arbitrary criteria. The criteria they have made open after 4 months after declaration of the result. They are playing with the lives of Indian youth.

Also the quality of lecturers/ professors/ researchers would increase due to highly competitive market. More the no. of students passed more would be the competition. Best of the students from the lot would go for teaching.

As UGC NET is a qualifying examination and just provides a minimum eligibility criterion to give interviews and not a competitive exam, UGC cannot fix up a certain merit based criteria. From 2006 to 2011 you have followed the same criteria and sudden increase in the cut offs is not applicable. As, a lecturer is recruited on the basis of good marks in post graduation, papers published, extracurricular activities etc. and not on the basis of NET only. So this is not the only criteria, a students should have good academic records and other credentials.

Kerala High Court Judgment

The Kerala high court on Monday 17 Dec, 2012) declared as illegal the new norms fixed by the University Grants Commission (UGC) for the National Eligiblity Test (NET) for college and university lectureship. The main points of the Kerala High Court declaratory judgment are:

1. “The power of UGC ought to have been excercised in a proper, fair and reasonable manner,” Justice T.R. Ramachandran Nair held while allowing a batch of petitions challenging the new norms.
2. The court held that fixing of higher aggregate marks for three categories, that too just after the announcements of results, cannot be justified as the same was “not supportable by law”.
3. By changing the standards at the final stage and just before declaration of results, “it can definitely be seen that it affected adversely the expectations of a large number of candidates”, the court said.
4. Justice P.R. Ramachandran Nair held that the UGC regulations did not confer any right on the UGC to fix high marks after holding of the NET. Nor could such criteria be introduced just before the announcement of the results by executive orders.
5. The introduction of the new criteria was not supported by the law. The court added that the students were jolted when all of a sudden the UGC prescribed the percentage of the aggregate marks. The adoption of such norms at the final stage and just before the declaration of the results had affected the candidates.
6. The change of the cut-off marks at the final stage violated Article 14 of the Constitution (equality before law).
7. The court also declared that the petitioners, who had obtained the separate minimum marks prescribed in the UGC notification, had cleared the NET. It also declared that all those who have obtained minimum marks prescribed in the notification have cleared NET and appropriate follow-up action be taken to issue certificates to them within one month.

Various Questions

There are various questions which can be asked from UGC for their misconducts and irresponsible behavior:

1. Are two criteria's are allowed for the same exam that too after declaring the result? (Firstly category-wise on 18 Sept 2012 then subject wise on 12 Nov 2012. The criterion had not been uploaded till 18 Jan, 2013 on their website.)
2. Why the UGC people changed the criteria's of Dec 2012 just 3 days before the exam? (In December also they changed their notification just 3 days before the examination , which shows that they know about the loopholes of their previous notification in June 2012)
3. Why they are not implementing the Kerala High court decision (is this not a breach of law)?
4. Is UGC allowed to violate the laws of this country, or they have special permission to do such practices from government of India? It would be a contempt of court and there should be stringent actions to be taken by the law and constitution against them.
5. Why UGC people are silent and not speaking and answering students?
6. How come a student with 64% aggregate marks is fail for lectureship and a person with 40 % aggregate marks is passed?
7. Should UGC chairman be allowed to continue on his services, who is violating every law with is own dictatorship...and with a team of foolish experts who are not able to make a single policy for an Eligibility exam (Not a competitive exam)?
8. Should there not be a charge of scam and a cheating case against UGC? Since lowering the eligibility for an objective type exam that also without a negative marking gives them more applicants (making huge money out of this) and they changes the criteria of an eligibility exam after declaration of results and after passing their near and dear ones (God only knows whether they have taken bribe for this or not!).

The unethical and unlawful act of UGC is hitting hard to our knowledge economy. Moreover one of the students (she has been a throughout topper) has taken an extreme step i.e. suicide ... She was a student in JNU and from Ludhiana.

Media’s support is very significant in the common cause. More than one lacs post graduate students all over India, whose lives are dependent on this result, are affected by this. As Media is the 4th pillar of democracy, their support in this matter is very much needed to give a lesson to the inappropriate/ unconstitutional actors in this to hinder the knowledge growth in the country.

Thanks,
UGC Victims