The Bombay High Court’s verdict about the relaxation plea for JEE 75 per cent eligibility criteria has come as a disappointment to many students. On Wednesday, May 3, the High Court refused to order relaxation in the case.

Now the petitioner and JEE aspirants are considering to challenge the Bombay High Court’s order in the Supreme Court.

“The students are left with no hope than to approach the supreme court as the high court has refused to interfere. We are waiting for the final order and then we will make a call about what will be the next move,” Petitioner Anubha Sahai said.

“The high court said that it does not want to interfere with the government’s decision even though the case was very strong because the government has informed just a few months before the exam and reintroduced this criterion due to which some students have taken a drop,” Sahai added

The petitioner had argued that the reimplementation should have argued before the counselling process last year so the students could have decided to drop out accordingly.

A division bench of Acting Chief Justice SV Gangapurwala and Justice Sandeep V Marne, on Wednesday, May 3, dismissed a PIL seeking relaxation of the eligibility criteria. "We cannot consider at this stage...It is for the government to decide," the court has said.

The eligibility criteria were relaxed for two years in 2021 and 2022 due to the COVID-19 pandemic and were reinstated this year. The National Testing Agency (NTA) stressed in its reply to the court that the criteria were never removed and only relaxed as a ‘one-time measure’ due to the pandemic.