The Kerala High Court, sitting through Justice Bechu Kurian Thomas, granted relief to three CBSE students who sought to upload their revalued marks on the Kerala Engineering Entrance Examination (KEAM) portal. The bench invoked the extraordinary jurisdiction conferred by Article 226 of the Constitution after determining that the facts presented constituted an exceptional situation.
The petitioners had initially uploaded the marks obtained in their qualifying examinations for the KEAM 2026 process. Dissatisfied with the scores, which they considered lower than expected, they applied for revaluation by the Central Board of Secondary Education. The revaluation results were published on 26 June and 27 June 2026, after the KEAM rank list had already been released on 27 June. The Court noted that the valuation of the CBSE answer sheets contained numerous flaws and that the majority of revaluations had been completed, yet the petitioners’ revised marks appeared only after the rank list was finalised, through no fault of their own.
Justice Bechu Kurian Thomas observed that the situation in the writ petitions was undoubtedly exceptional. The Court emphasized that the petitioners had approached the forum at the earliest possible opportunity, without any undue delay. It further highlighted that one of the petitioners was an overseas student and another hailed from the hilly region of Wayanad, underscoring the difficulties they faced in accessing timely information.
The bench rejected the argument that the petitioners could be denied relief on the ground of delay. It stated that the candidature for admission based on the revised ranks would be considered only from the next allotment onwards, and that the petitioners would not be entitled to any benefit in the first allotment. This moulding of relief was intended to protect the ongoing admission process, which had already commenced on 8 July, from disturbance.
The government pleader contended that an earlier order of the Court had confined the benefit of uploading revised marks to the petitioners in that earlier plea, and therefore the present petitioners could not claim similar relief. The pleader also submitted that any alteration to the rank list at this stage would disrupt the allotment procedures that were already underway.
The standing counsel for the CBSE submitted that revalued results had been released in batches beginning 21 June and that the Board had communicated to the Commissioner of Entrance Examination on 25 June that the remaining results would be published shortly. Despite this, the petitioners’ marks appeared after the rank list.
After hearing the parties, the Court held that its earlier observation limiting benefits to the earlier petitioners should not preclude relief for the present petitioners, who demonstrated genuine claims. The bench concluded that exceptional circumstances warranted exceptional measures, and therefore directed the Commissioner of Entrance Examination to permit the three students to upload their revalued marks on the KEAM portal.
The Court, however, clarified that the permission granted was confined strictly to the three petitioners and that no other individual should be allowed to upload revised marks under any circumstance. It reiterated that the allotment process already in progress must remain unaffected, and that the revised ranks would only be considered for subsequent allotments.
Thus, the Kerala High Court balanced the need to rectify an evaluation error with the imperative to preserve the integrity of the ongoing admission process, granting limited relief to the three CBSE students while safeguarding the interests of other candidates and the administering authority.