Government negligence leads to major KEAM rank reshuffle; revised rank list published using original method

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The government's negligence and indifference have forced thousands of students waiting to get admission into top engineering colleges to pay a heavy price. Following the High Court Division Bench’s directive that the ranking for the KEAM exam should be prepared based on the Plus Two marks integration as stated in the official prospectus, the rankings saw a major reshuffle. This adversely affected students who were ranked lower in the initial list.

When the new rank list was released at 9:50 PM last night, even the top rank changed. In the original list, the first rank was held by John Shinoj, a student from Muvattupuzha, Ernakulam, under the Kerala syllabus. He now moved to the 7th rank.

In the revised list, the first rank went to Joshua Jacob Thomas from Kowdiar, Thiruvananthapuram, who studied under the CBSE syllabus. He was ranked 5th in the previous list. John Shinoj, the original top rank holder, had already secured admission to Electrical Engineering at IIT Gandhinagar, Gujarat, with a JEE Advanced rank of 3553.

The second rank remains unchanged with Harikishan Baiju, who also held the second rank in the earlier list. Harikishan has secured admission to a dual degree program in Electrical Engineering at IIT Mumbai.

Akshay Biju, who was previously ranked third, has now moved to the 8th position. Akshay, who secured the top rank in Kerala in the JEE Advanced exam, will be joining Computer Science at IIT Kanpur. Meanwhile, the student previously ranked 8th moved to 185th position, and the one at 10th moved to 21st.

There were no changes for the first and second rank holders in the Scheduled Castes (SC) and Scheduled Tribes (ST) categories. In the female category, Diya Roopya from Perumpuzha, Kollam, who was first in the original list, is now ranked second. The ranks of all 76,230 students on the list have changed. The updated rank list has been published on the website www.cee.kerala.gov.in. The option registration for admissions will begin the following day.

Govt ignored committee's suggestion, says High Court
The expert committee had recommended that although the ranking criteria needed revision, it should be implemented only after thorough examination and assurance that the new formula was better. The report also noted that implementing the changes this year would be difficult.

The High Court observed that the committee had not suggested implementing the new method this year itself. The Division Bench, comprising Justice Anil K. Narendran and Justice S. Murali Krishna, also stated that they were not questioning the government's authority to decide the ranking method.

Top 10 rank holders (new list):
Joshua Jacob Thomas – Thiruvananthapuram
Harikishan Baiju – Ernakulam
Emil Iype Zacharia – Thiruvananthapuram
Adil Sayan – Kozhikode
Advaith Sandeep – Bengaluru
Ananya Rajeev – Bengaluru
John Shinoj – Ernakulam
Akshay Biju – Kozhikode
Achyuth Vinod – Kozhikode
Anmol Baiju – Kozhikode

Scheduled Caste (SC):
Hridin Biju – Kasaragod (Rank 68)
Ananthakrishnan – Muttada, Thiruvananthapuram (Rank 223)

Scheduled Tribe (ST):
K.S. Shabarinath – Kottayam (Rank 2550)
Gaurishankar – Periya, Kasaragod (Rank 2672)