Kochi | The Kerala High Court on Wednesday struck down a last-minute change made by the state government to the KEAM 2025 entrance exam prospectus, calling it "illegal, arbitrary, and unjustified".

The state government filed an appeal before a division bench against the single bench's decision, hours after it issued the order on a petition filed by a group of CBSE students who sat for the KEAM (Kerala Engineering, Architecture, and Medical Entrance Examination). The matter is expected to be considered on Thursday.

Earlier, in their plea, the CBSE students argued that the change, issued on July 1--just an hour before the rank list was published--altered the method for calculating final scores of candidates.

The court observed that the timing of the decision appeared suspicious.

In the order, Justice D K Singh said that the change in the prospectus one hour before the publication of the rank list after the examination is wholly unjustified, illegal, and arbitrary.

The court ordered that the rank list be reissued using the original formula specified in the February 19 prospectus.

"The change in the prospectus is set aside. The Commissioner for Entrance Examinations is directed to publish the rank list in accordance with the prospectus, which was issued on February 19, 2025," the order said, while disposing of the writ petition.

The court said that prima facie, it appears that somebody looked at the results and found that the students from the Kerala stream have not done fairly good, and to satisfy the constituency, such a mala fide decision in an arbitrary manner has been taken to change the prospectus one hour before the publication of the result on July 1, 2025.

"Such an exercise of power is wholly arbitrary, illegal, unjustified, and cannot be countenanced on any ground," the order said.