New Delhi: Admission of students to the Indian Institutes of Technology and other top engineering colleges was halted by the Supreme Court today that is hearing complaints that the bonus marks were wrongly awarded to candidates who appeared in this year’s Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) Advanced. Over 50,000 students had qualified to study in leading state-run engineering colleges including the IIT and National Institute of Technology after this examination.
Some students had approached the Supreme Court, pointing that there were was an error in the Hindi version of the question papers relating to chemistry and mathematics subject.
When these were detected later, officials gave grace marks to all candidates irrespective of whether the student attempted the question or not. The petitioners said this was unfair and hurt their prospects.
The petitioners wanted the merit list announced for the JEE (Advanced) level to be cancelled and a fresh merit list be issued.
A bench of Justices Dipak Misra and A M Khanwilkar, which will hear the case in detail on Monday, also told high courts across the country not to hear any petition relating to IIT admissions and counselling of students.
The joint admission board of the IITs had asked the court to dismiss the petition, pointing that a committee of experts had decided to give bonus marks after evaluating all options. The board was also worried that a judicial intervention at this stage could jeopardise the admission process. The process of seat allocation is at an advanced stage and 29,425 candidates have accepted the allotted seats.
About 1.7 lakh candidates had registered for the advanced-level examination after clearing an initial screening test. At stake are 36,000 seats in 97 institutes under the joint seat allocation programme for state-run engineering colleges including the National Institute of Technology and IITs.
