MUMBAI: After a battle of over two months, the Bombay High Court on Tuesday started pronouncing its verdict after hearing a bunch of petitions that has challenged the best-of-five policy adopted by the Secondary School Certificate Board in declaring results to class X - and the defence of the Maharashtra government.

A division bench of acting Chief Justice JN Patel and Justice SC Dharmadhikari, started dictating the ruling onTuesday - and the final verdict is expected on Wednesday.

Meanwhile, senior counsel Rafiq Dada, who appeared for the group of petitioners, argued that the state government's best-of-five system was meant to benefit only the SSC students and it was a "gross inequality" towards the Indian Certificate of Secondary Education (ICSE) students.

Dada pleaded that the Maharashtra government must adopt a "consensual approach" so that all the students are treated "at par" and the best-of-five system creared "further discrimination" and widened trhe disparity.

However, Advocate General Ravi Kadam fought back stating that the ICSE board itself stood at an advantage, with its marking system and the state was only trying in "to achieve equivalence" by proposing a system which would make the procedure of standard XI admissions fair.

Kadam pleaded that the ICSE board had a system where any student who passed in five out of seven subjects was still declared passed in the board exams for class X. Whereas, he pointed out, the SSC board syllabus had six core subjects in which passing was mandatory.

"If we compare both the system, SSC students were at a disadvantage," he said, explaining that the best of five system was meant to "destress' the SSC students who were under the pressure of scoring in all the subjects for high final aggregate percentage. With this system, the students would have to score well in five subjects out of six and also passing in all subjects.

The marklist for the SSC this year would be issued with the 'best-of-five' calculation if the bunch of petitions filed are set aside.

The state also explained that there was no legal obligation on the state to consult other boards while issuing its GRs. However, Kadam points out that even then the state had issued notifications through newspapers and the state website with also inviting opinion and suggestions for the best of five proposal. Even then, the petitioners had responded, after four months, when the admission for class XI were just at the threshold.