If there was 1 Board do you need any normalization? The clear answer is no! So if the formula CBSE adopted was proper it would degenerate to no normalization in case of a single Board. But this formula will normalize even if there is 1 Board. And hence this is a totally erroneous formula. I do not find any merit in your or the Judge's argument of all Board toppers not being equal as this also was assumed by NIT council (see all discussions of IIT-NIT council and the minutes where Prof. Barua had also spelt out the normalization procedure). The mistake the NIT council made was that it did not specify the full formula and let CBSE apply too much mind to it. Sanjeev Sanghi, IIT Delhi