The plea regarding the removal of the 75 per cent eligibility criteria in the JEE Main 2023 exam was mentioned in the Bombay High Court today, March 1, by Advocate Anubha Shrivastava Sahai. The next hearing of the case is now scheduled for April 6.
The Public Interest Litigation (PIL) was filed in the HC last month, initially demanding that the exam, which was scheduled to start on January 24, be postponed, and the 75 per cent eligibility criteria be removed. However, the court refused to postpone the exam, refusing to interfere with the decided schedule, according to Anubha. "But the court mentioned that the 75 per cent eligibility criteria could be discussed later," she said.
So, the demand in the PIL was modified to removal of the eligibility criteria and grant an extra attempt to the candidates. According to Anubha, an intervention was filed in the case by a group of students from Kolkata, and another will be soon filed by students from Maharashtra.
The case was slated to be heard on February 21, but due to the absence of the bench, the hearing had been postponed. "Today I urged the court for an urgent hearing. But since the JEE Main counselling will be held in June after the JEE Advanced 2023 exam has ended, the court pointed out that there was time, and gave April 6 as the hearing date," the advocate explained.
"On April 6, we will discuss the removal of the 75 per cent eligibility criteria, and will also lobby for an extra attempt," she added. According to the National Testing Agency (NTA) guidelines, students who have obtained more than or equal to 75 per cent marks in their Class XII board exams are eligible to apply for JEE Mian 2023. And those students who belong to state boards need to have obtained a place among the top 20 scorers to apply.
This criteria was in place before the pandemic and was reintroduced again this year. In a previous conversation with EdexLive, Anubha said, "Students from Boards that will not declare their top 20 percentile will have to get a certificate from the Board saying that they belong to the top 20 percentile. If the students are unable to do so, their 20 percentile will be calculated according to CBSE, which goes beyond 85 per cent," explaining the problem with the criteria.
