Students from non-CBSE boards on Wednesday staged protest against Delhi University's admission guideline to deduct 10% marks from the best of four subjects of candidates from boards with different marking pattern.

Alleging a bias towards candidates from state boards, the students staged a protest at varsity's North campus and demanded the penalty clause be withdrawn. According to the university guidelines, all the discipline subjects must have at least 70% component of theory in the qualifying exam for the purpose of being treated as academic/elective subject.

Students who have passed from boards, which do not have the 70:30 ratio of practical and theory, will attract a penalty of 10%. "The students of state boards like UP Board, Bihar Board, Haryana Board and others usually score less marks, when compared to their CBSE counterparts, deducting their marks will further more reduce their chances of admission," an aspirant said.

Another aspirant claimed, "Deduction of 10% marks is a huge penalty for students especially at a time when the cut offs are unrealistically high and even 0.5% matters." However, the university officials maintained that the guidelines have been framed keeping larger interest for students in mind.

"The university has a cosmopolitan nature and the guidelines have been framed as such to provide a level playing field to students from boards across the country," a senior varsity official said. "The students who have passed out from boards which have more component of practical marks can easily have an edge over CBSE and other similar boards. Hence, to neutralise the same, the penalty clause has been kept," he added.

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