Ending uncertainty over admissions to Government engineering colleges, including IITs and NITs, the Supreme Court on Monday vacated its stay order of Friday and directed the Centre to fill up the remaining vacant seats.
After errors were detected in the Indian Institute of Technology-Joint Entrance Examination (Advanced) held this year, the decision of the IIT Association to award 18 bonus marks to all candidates, irrespective of whether or not they attempted the question, was challenged in a set of writ petitions by several IIT aspirants. On Friday, the Bench had agreed with the petitioners that in a similar case, the Supreme Court had decided in 2005 that bonus marks could be awarded only to candidates who attempted the question.
On Monday, the IIT Association informed the court that the 2005 decision was not relatable to the case at hand since the criteria of negative marking was prevalent in the
JEE (Advanced) 2017 examination that was taken up by close to 1.56 lakh students. The 2005 decision was in context of an examination involving only 10,000 students.
The Bench of Justices Dipak Misra, AM Khanwilkar and MM Shantanagoudar agreed with the IITs’ decision and proceeded to vacate the stay on the admission process. The Centre represented by Attorney General KK Venugopal and ASG Tushar Mehta pointed out that the decision to award bonus marks was not discriminatory as it will benefit all students. Moreover, this decision was reviewed by 33 faculty members of IITs spread across India.
While dismissing the petitions, the bench directed Centre and IITs to ensure that in such future examinations all efforts are made to ensure such errors do not creep in. The bench sought an action plan in this regard from IIT by October 10.