The Supreme Court on Friday sought the Centre's response on a plea to set aside the IIT Joint Entrance Examination 2017 rank list after a candidate who appeared in the examination questioned the policy to award extra marks for those who appeared in the Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) Advanced 2017.
Calling the policy as discriminatory for persons who did not take the JEE Advanced test, the petitioner Aishwarya Agarwal sought a stay on the counselling process that commenced on Thursday. The Vacation Bench of Justices Abhay Manohar Sapre and Sanjay Kishan Kaul refused to order stay. However, the Court issued notice to Ministry of Human Resources Development (MHRD) and IIT Madras (organiser of IIT-JEE 2017) for their response. The Bench will hear the petition on July 7.
The petition attacked the examination on two fronts. It sought court's direction to declare the action of awarding "bonus marks" to candidates who had appeared in the JEE (Advanced)- 2017 examination as wrong and violative of rights of other students similarly situated to her. The petition demanded that after scrapping the bonus marks awarded to such candidates, a fresh merit list should be drawn out.
The second plank on which the petitioner attacked the IIT-JEE rank list was based on the incorrect questions that surfaced in this year's question paper. Accepting there were errors, the IIT-JEE organizers announced 18 bonus marks to all candidates, irrespective of whether or not they attempted the faulty question. The IIT aspirant sought a direction to rectify the scores of JEE (Advanced) by awarding marks for the incorrect questions to those candidates who attempted the right answers. The petition said that the policy announced by IIT was "clearly arbitrary" and violated the rights of candidates who successfully solved the said questions.
As an alternative, the petitioner said the institution should conduct fresh examination or grant all students another opportunity to appear in the examination to be conducted next year.