The Bombay High Court on Wednesday directed the Maharashtra government to consider constituting a committee of experts from different education boards to prepare a common question paper for the upcoming common entrance test (CET) for admissions to first-year junior college (FYJC) across the state.
A bench of Justices RD Dhanuka and RI Chagla directed the Maharashtra government counsel to take instructions on whether the court's suggestion on such a committee could be implemented and a reasonable solution is found. The High Court was hearing a petition filed by a student of the ICSE board and a bunch of intervention applications challenging a government resolution dated May 28, which declared that the admissions to Class 11 or junior colleges will be on the basis of a CET, which in turn will be based solely on the syllabus of the SSC board.
In the previous hearing, the bench had said that prima facie, the state government cannot choose the syllabus for all students who had not passed out from the state board, and suggested that the government let individual boards decide their respective syllabus. On Wednesday, however, the state government's counsel Poornima Kantharia told the court that permitting different boards to decide their own syllabus will not be possible, and added that apart from the ICSE and CBSE boards, the International Baccalaureate (IB) board too wanted to be impleaded as a party. "All these different boards will want their own syllabus to be included (in the CET). This will lead to complete chaos," Kantharia told the court.
The counsel further stated that the SSC board can't set questions for CBSE and ICSE, or any other boards. To this, the court said it was imperative for the state to come up with a "reasonable solution" to ensure that no student is put at any disadvantage. "Therefore, we are suggesting that you form a committee with members from all boards.
Let them set questions with options for students," the High Court said. The committee of experts could prepare a common CET question paper by incorporating multiple subjects with a choice for students to opt for questions that pertain to subjects relevant to their respective boards, it said. The court directed the Maharashtra government to inform it by August 4, if forming such a committee was feasible.
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