HC rejects petition to quash MBA CET results, admission

MUMBAI: A petition by 154 students to quash or set aside the MBA common entrance test (CET) 2023-24 results and admission process was rejected by the Bombay high court on Tuesday.It dismissed the PG aspirants’ petition about grievance over a retest and consequent lack of transparency as “without substance”. “There are only 154 students who came before us. They say the entire CET exam should be done again. No thought is spared for hundreds of thousands of others who gave the entrance exam,” said a bench of Justices Gautam Patel and Neela Gokhale.It added: “The petitioners do not represent all candidates, yet (it is) expected that all those persons suffer at the instance of the present disgruntled persons without being given the slightest opportunity of being heard.”At the last hearing on Monday too, the judges had questioned why a few students should hold up an entire admission process. By an interim order, it had directed that admissions to Masters in Business Administration (MBA) courses can continue via the Maharashtra State CET Cell subject to final orders.The students’ grievance as submitted by their counsel S B Talekar was that the CET cell conducted a selective retest for the MBA admissions and the whole process lacked transparency.“It is telling that all these complaints of structural failures or discrepancies are brought to life only after results are declared. We are wholly unable to see any substance in the petition. We reject it on facts and substance. As the petitioners are students, we refrain from making an order of imposing costs,” said the bench.At the first hearing late last month, the bench had questioned how the cell was ultimately going to normalise all the slots and had sought the presence of the commissioner of CET cell.Seeking dismissal of the petition, advocate general Birendra Saraf had said any relief now would set to nought the entire admission process and adversely affect the careers of a wider section of students.Explaining the CET’s role, Saraf said the examinations were held in four batches, each getting a different paper. In the first batch, some students were granted excess time and some others faced technical glitches. A petition by several students, including some of the present petitioners, sought a re-examination. The HC directed re-test for the affected students.The present batch of petitioners did not challenge the process then and, in fact, 77 of the 150-odd petitioners sat for the re-examination. After the results were declared, they approached the high court seeking quashing of the entire process that had given a fair opportunity to all. On Monday, the HC concluded hearing the matter and reserved it for final orders on Tuesday.