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assigned to the students by application of the formula with which we will be dealing with in the later part of the judgment.
Perception of the State Government.

2. The number of students appearing in the SSC, ICSE, CBSE and other Boards vary drastically in as much as more than 15.5 lacs students appeared for 10th standard examination conducted by SSC Board, whereas about 15,000 students appeared from CBSE Board and about 1200 students from ICSE Board. The different boards have their own syllabus and subjects, different pattern of examination and different standard of evaluation. It was found difficult by the State and its authorities to compare the interse merit of the students passing from different Boards,having regard to the disparities. It was perceived that some of the Boards evaluate the performance of the students at the examination liberally and thus the students from the said Board are placed in an advantageous position as compared to the other Boards. With a view to standardise or normalise the percentage of marks secured by the students from different Boards, a need to evolve a formula was felt by the State.

4. According to the State, the marking system in the examination of 10th std. from ICSE and CBSE Board is more objective whereas the one in SSC Board is comparatively subjective. The Under Secretary for the State Government has placed on record the comparative information in regard to SSC, ICSE and CBSE Boards relating to the conduct of 10th standard examination, which brings about differences in the examinations conducted by the respective Boards. The same is as under:

5. The learned counsel for ICSE Board has applied for intervention and we had permitted the same. Few other associations of teachers and parents have also intervened in the matter, and their interventions are also allowed and all have been afforded an opportunity of hearing. In the first place the learned counsel appearing for ICSE, who is supporting the petitioner has raised preliminary objection to the very application of the `percentile' to students from different Boards being misconceived and wholly in-appropriate. In his submission only the students who pass the same examination conducted by the same Board such as eight Divisions of the SSC Board could be subjected to the percentile formula. It is submitted that, if the course and the syllabus is different, if the question papers are different and the performance of the students have been evaluated at a different touch-stone, with a different pattern examination, it is not at all possible to apply percentile formula for normalisation or standardisation of the marks. He has placed on record a print out from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, from the web site of http.//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Percentile_rank, which goes to indicate that the percentile method can be applied when students are similarly situate. Barring the said document, no other material has been placed on record to substantiate the contention that percentile method cannot be applied when the students come from different streams, on passing dis-similar examinations with different evaluation mechanism. No authentic material and data has been placed on record to enable me to hold that the State government could not have introduced the percentile formula for normalisation of the marks secured by the students passing 10th standard examination from different Boards. I am conscious of the fact that the court lack expertise in this area and thus choose to refrane from holding, as sought by the ICSE Board, that the percentile formula itself could not have been applied to bring about normalisation of percentage of marks secured by the students from different Boards. This brings me to consider other challenges raised by the petitioner and the supporting interveners to the percentile formula introduced by the State. Briefly stated the challenges are thus:

24. The State Government has introduced a definite principle rather a statistical formula aimed at equalisation or normalisation of the percentage of marks, and the same operates equally to all the students in all situations for the purpose of securing admissions. The percentile formula does satisfy the test laid down by the Supreme Court about existence of a discernible principle and thus the same cannot be said to be arbitrary. Reverting back to the question of reasonableness of the principle, suffice it to point out that till the year 2007, though only few thousand students used to pass 10th standard from other Boards such as CBSE and ICSE, they could secure majority of the seats in the admission to 11th standard in the preferred colleges, leaving the students from SSC Board high and dry while securing admissions to such colleges. After introducing the percentile, still the students passing 10th standard examination from ICSE and CBSE Board get more seats in proportion to their number in the preferred colleges. As a matter of fact the formula has not operated strikingly to the detriment of the interest of the students from ICSE and CBSE Board. They are getting more seats than their numerical proportion.