The Karnataka High Court has dismissed a series of petitions filed by MBBS students who sought the award of five grace marks in the RS4 examinations conducted in January 2024. These students had contested the evaluation procedure laid down by the Rajiv Gandhi University of Health Sciences (RGUHS) and argued that the system in place should have allowed for grace marks under the 2019 regulations.

Justice S Sunil Dutt Yadav, while delivering the judgment, emphasized that courts should not interfere in academic matters by overruling the decisions and guidelines of academic institutions. The petitioners challenged the ordinance issued on September 5, 2022, which governed the Central Assessment Programme (CAP) for the valuation of theory papers for all undergraduate health science courses at RGUHS. This ordinance mandates that answer scripts undergo evaluation by two different examiners, and the highest of the marks awarded by either examiner is considered final. The rules also state that no further valuation requests will be entertained after results are computed.

The students contended that the 2023 guidelines issued by the Undergraduate Medical Education Board (UGMEB), which eliminated grace marks, should not apply to them, as they had relied on the 2019 regulations that allowed for grace marks. However, the court held that academic standards and examination rules are dynamic and subject to change, and students must comply with the standards in place at the time of their examination.

In conclusion, the court dismissed the petitions, affirming that the 2023 guidelines supersede the 2019 regulations, thereby ruling out the possibility of awarding grace marks to the petitioners.

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