The stand of the National Testing Agency (NTA) has been sought by the Delhi High Court on a petition which was filed by a candidate alleging that he has been wrongly declared "ineligible" for applying to the Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) (Advance) despite securing above benchmark scores in the JEE (Main).

As stated in a report by PTI, the petitioner shared that as per his score-cards, downloaded from the NTA portal, he secured a percentile of 98.79 and 99.23 in the first and second sessions, respectively, of the Mains examination but at the time of applying for the Advance examination, he learnt that as per the authorities, his percentile is 20.767 and 14.64.

The NTA informed the court that not only is the score card presented by the petitioner false, but it has no credibility and neither can it be relied upon.

For now, Justice Sanjeev Narula has permitted the petitioner to apply for the Advance examination, clarifying that whether he would be permitted to take the exam, which is scheduled for August 28, would be decided after perusing the relevant documents.

The NTA has been directed by the court to file a short affidavit on the matter and place before it all the records that are relevant, this includes the response sheet of the petitioner. The case has been listed for further hearing on August 18.

"In order for the court to form an opinion, the Respondents are to be afforded an opportunity to produce the documents noted above. Accordingly, NTA is directed to file a short affidavit on the above aspects, along with all relevant records, including the response sheet of the Petitioner, within a period of five days from today," said the court in its order dated August 11.

"It is made clear that the Court has not expressed any opinion on the merits of the case, even on a prima facie basis. No special equity shall be claimed by the Petitioner or enure to his benefit on the basis of above directions," it added.

The court also issued notice to the Centre on the petition and permitted it to file its response.