No more grace marks for medical students? Madras High Court slams practice

The Madras High Court has come down on the practice of awarding grace marks to medical students who fail to clear certain subjects.

Dismissing a petition filed by a third-year MBBS student of a private college in Puducherry, seeking grace marks to enable her to clear the ophthalmology paper, Justice S Vaidyanathan, in a recent order, said citizens were taken for a ride by such practices.

If the students of ophthalmology were allowed to clear the paper with grace marks and if they were going to become doctors and perform surgeries, the patients would have to regain their eyesight only with the grace of the god, the judge said.

The petitioner, who had failed twice in the ophthalmology paper, had sought a direction to the Pondicherry University to grant her three grace marks to enable her clear it.

She had secured 29 marks in the theory paper, instead of the 32 required to pass.

Noting that up to five grace marks could be granted to a student as per the university rules, she had prayed for the relief.