BENGALURU
Observing that a student would benefit in the global professional job market on completing B Pharma course with higher standards fixed for passing the exams by the Rajiv Gandhi University of Health Sciences, the High Court of Karnataka has rejected a student’s plea against reduction in award of grace marks to pass the first year B Pharma exam after he joined the course.
“If the petitioner is allowed to call in question the power of the university for the promulgation of ordinances/notifications altering the criteria for the award of grace marks by making it more rigorous, it will have a deleterious effect on the endeavour of the university to enhance the standard of the students who earn the degree reflecting commensurate proficiency in the domain,” the court observed.
Justice P Krishna Bhat passed the order while holding that the petitioner-student was fully aware at least about three months in advance the standard by which his performance is going to be evaluated and what would be the minimum marks he was required to secure for passing the exams.
The higher benchmark set by the domain experts of the university would make the student, when coming of the institution, to have expertise in the field which is comparable with the students coming out of other institutions elsewhere globally so that he is able to meet the requirements of the professional job market, the court observed.
There is no vested right in the petitioner-student to claim that he should be tested as per the previous notification, which was beneficial to him as it was liberal in awarding grace marks, the court said while pointing out that the new notification fixing higher standard by reducing grace marks was notified by following due process of law.
The petitioner-student had joined the course in January 2021, the new notification prescribing lesser grace marks was issued on February 23, 2021, and he appeared for the first-semester exam in June 2021. He challenged this notification only after he failed in one of the exams. His claim was that his papers should have been evaluated based on the 2019 notification, which had a provision for awarding higher grace marks.
