Students, parents and experts have been raising their voices against the 75 per cent eligibility criteria in the Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) Main and Advanced 2023 examinations. While a plea filed by Advocate Anubha Sahai against this criterion was upheld by the Bombay High Court on May 2, another case filed by a couple of students with the support of one of the Directors of Allen Institute is set to be heard in the Supreme Court (SC).
According to Sumit Kumar, a student who has appeared for JEE this year, the case will be heard on July 3. He notes that the apex court's summer vacations are scheduled from May 23 to July 2, making an earlier hearing feasible.
"This is problematic, as the JoSAA (Joint Seat Allocation Authority) Counselling for admission into IITs and NITs will begin from June 19. We only get 10 days to fill in our choices. So, even if the court verdict is in our favour, the admission process will have begun by July, and would be of no help," Sumit says. While many are confused if they should take admission in other colleges or wait for the court verdict, some students are hopeful that if the verdict is in their favour, SC might reopen the JoSAA counselling.
The student further mentions that students opting for Engineering courses would have the option of applying to other colleges apart from the IITs and NITs which consider JEE marks, whereas students opting for Paper 2 (Architecture/Planning) have no such options. "Only seven NITs consider JEE scores for Paper 2, but no other government college considers them," he adds, lamenting the fact that neither the earlier petition filed in the Bombay High Court nor the one filed later in the Supreme Court, takes note of the plight of the Architecture/Planning aspirants.
The petition in the Bombay High Court was filed in January, while the one in the apex court was filed in April and verified on May 14. Speaking about the matter, Anubha states that she is also planning to file a petition in the Supreme Court against the Bombay High Court order soon.
What are the criteria?
According to the 75 per cent eligibility criteria, students who have achieved a minimum of 75 per cent or have secured a position among the top 20 percentile scorers in their board exams are eligible to apply for admissions in esteemed government institutions such as IITs, NITs, CFTIs, and IIITs. Students are expressing their grievances about potentially missing out on admission opportunities if the criteria are not eased.
It is pertinent to mention here that the criteria were relaxed for the last three years owing to the pandemic. The petitioners state that it was suddenly reintroduced this year and should be relaxed as a measure of fairness to the aspirants.
