Anna University publishes pass percentage in engineering colleges after HC order

CHENNAI: On Thursday morning, Anna University, Chennai, complied with an order of the Madras high court, and published the pass percentage of students in each of the 500-odd affiliated engineering colleges. The pass percentages have been published a day before the academic general counselling for admission to engineering courses begins.
Though the university was asked to publish the pass rates of colleges before the single window counselling session began this year, the university waited for the court order to reach them.Candidates who were called for sports quota counselling were compelled to make their choices without this guidance.
Last Friday, a division bench of acting Chief Justice RK Agrawal and Justice M Sathianarayanan passed orders on a public interest litigation filed by D Bhoobalasamy, a parent of a girl who is applying for engineering admission. Bhoobalasamy had said that many colleges did not have the required infrastructure and facilities and that people like him were unable to make an informed choice.
The petitioner argued that many colleges with similar names were confusing students. The division bench had directed the university to release the pass percentage of all the colleges with a separate identification for all colleges with similar names.
The university has meticulously put out the pass percentage of students of each department in all the semesters. But, if students were looking for a pecking order, they are likely to be disappointed. The university seems to have arrived at a compromise, by publishing the pass percentages of all colleges, but not ranking them according to them. This is expected to appease colleges, who were against publishing a rank list based on pass rates, while following the court direction.