Breaking: JEE Main 2023: Bombay High Court rules against petition to delay Main Session I

The Joint Entrance Exam (JEE) Main, session-I of which is scheduled to begin on January 25, will not be delayed as per the decision of the Bombay High Court. The court was requested to push back session I of the exam to May and session II to April, with the argument that students were not given adequate time to prepare, and that the January dates conflicted with pre-board and practical exams in certain states.

A petition was heard by the bench of acting chief justice SV Gangapurwala and Justice Sandeep V Marne, consisting of Advocate Anubha Shrivastava, who filed the request. The court was informed that students have the opportunity of taking the exam twice and decided that if students are unable to take session I in January, or don't do well, they can participate in Session II in April. "Any orders passed to postpone may have a cascading effect. If a student does not fare well in JEE January, he can compete in April. Extraordinary circumstances don't seem to exist. It wouldn't be appropriate to restrain the respondent from conducting a pan-India exam," said the bench, according to a tweet by LiveLaw.

Advocate Joseph Thate, who presented the case on behalf of the petitioner, stated that the students were caught off guard by the notification for the exam which was issued by the National Testing Agency on December 15, with less than 40 days remaining before the exam. Additionally, the counselling process for JEE 2022 ended only in November 2022, providing students with very limited time for preparation. "Although another opportunity is there in April, every attempt is counted. Moreover, it would be detrimental to the students," said advocate Thate.

In regards to the request for relief related to the 75% eligibility criteria to qualify for NITs and IIITs, the court stated that the counsel for the petitioner had requested additional time to file a rejoinder and present arguments and that it will be appropriate to consider closer to the date of the counselling in June.

The Assistant Solicitor General, who represented the state in the matter, informed the court that the JEE Main Session I had been held in January in 2019 and 2020, prior to the onset of the pandemic, and further stated that the petitioner had not established the necessary connection or relevance to justify the request for relief.

The deadline to register for JEE Main 2023 is January 12, with the first session of the exam taking place from January 24 to January 31. The second session of the exam will be held from April 6 to April 12.