Madras HC rejects plea of SL refugee student

Madras High Court Bench has dismissed a plea of a Sri Lankan refugee medical student of the Madras Medical College seeking to change the results of two subjects in second year exam held in February last year.

Saravana Pavan Nadarajah had failed in the two subjects but contended that he had cleared them as per an evaluation of his answer scripts, obtained under the Right to Information Act, by two doctors who were not the examiners.

Justice K Chandru rejected the plea, saying the question of papers being evaluated by those not concerned with the process could not be encouraged. "The question of going by outsiders' opinion would not arise as there was no infirmity in the evaluation of petitioner's answer script by the competent authorities," he held in his recent order.

The petitioner had joined MMC in October, 1987 under the refugee quota. In 1984, he was arrayed as an accused in the Meenambakkam Aiport bomb blast, which claimed 33 lives and left 27 injured. Though a special court convicted him, the high court acquitted him and he was permitted to rejoin in the second year of MBBS course in 2008.

He had filed a series of writ petitions with various pleas such as issuance of application forms for examinations and the payment of fees. In July, he obtained an order to declare results of examinations he wrote in February and to permit him to sit for the examination in August if he had failed.After he unsuccessfully moved the court for a direction for revaluation of his answer scripts, the university too rejected his plea on ground that rules permitted only re-totaling. It was also pointed out that the petitioner was yet to complete the second year despite making several attempts. He could not be given even grace marks as they were generally awarded only for those who fail in a single subject.

Justice Chandru questioned how the student could file the present petition when a previous petition with an identical plea had been disposed of by the court.