The Bombay High Court, today, Wednesday, May 3, refused to order relaxation for the Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) Main 75% eligibility criteria for admission into top engineering institutes like the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) and National Institutes of Technology (NITs).
As per Livelaw.in, a division bench of Acting Chief Justice SV Gangapurwala and Justice Sandeep V Marne dismissed a PIL seeking relaxation of the eligibility criteria. "We cannot consider at this stage...It is for the government to decide," the court said.
During a hearing in the matter on Tuesday, May 2, the court said that allowing relaxation would affect other students who have scored above 75% marks in their board exams. Moreover, it added that since the examination is pan-India and not just limited to Maharashtra, the court has its own limitations.
An order copy will be made available to both parties so that they can take further steps.
Background
The eligibility criteria for admission into IITs and NITs state that only those students having at least 75 per cent marks in their Class XII examination or are in the top 20 percentile of their respective Boards will be eligible.
The criteria were removed for two years, in 2021 and 2022, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the National Testing Agency (NTA), the body which conducts the exam, reinstated the same for this year.
Following this, a PIL was filed in the Bombay High Court by activist and advocate Anubha Sahai. The PIL stated that many candidates are from batches that were not assessed on the basis of performance in the previous years as the Board exams were cancelled due to COVID-19.
The petitioner argued that there are students with less than 75% marks but could perform well in JEE Main and if a fair chance is denied to them, it will affect their future.
However, in a reply to the high court, the National Testing Agency (NTA) stressed that the criteria was never removed and only relaxed as a ‘one-time measure’ due to the pandemic. The affidavit submitted on behalf of NTA also added that the criteria has been there since 2017 and has not been challenged until this year.
