The Supreme Court on Friday stayed admissions to the country’s most elite engineering courses at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) where counselling is still on.
Staying the counselling process for the time being, the Bench of Justices Dipak Misra and AM Khanwilkar set out to examine the correctness of IITs’ decision to award bonus marks for wrong questions to candidates who took the IIT Joint Entrance Examination (Advanced) this year.
The decision came on a petition filed by two IIT aspirants who challenged the Government’s decision to award bonus marks to all candidates when their demand was to restrict the same to those candidates who attempted the question. The Bench, which posted the matter for hearing on Monday, said, “No counselling or admission to the seats in IIT-JEE (Advanced) 2017 shall take place until further orders.”
All High Courts were also restrained from entertaining any writ petition involving admissions to IITs this year. The Court further asked the Registrar Generals of High Courts to forward details of any pending cases related to the issue at hand.
The decision came as a huge setback for the Centre and students awaiting admission into IITs. Attorney General KK Venugopal who argued for the Centre pointed out that as soon as mistakes were noticed in the question paper, it was decided that instead of going through a cumbersome process of examining each answer sheet, a bonus of 18-marks will be awarded to each candidate, irrespective of whether s/he attempted the wrong question.
This became the bone of contention as the twin petitions before the apex court demanded only those who attempted the question to be awarded bonus marks. The two petitioners through senior advocate Vikas Singh insisted on drawing out a fresh rank list or in the alternate conduct fresh examination.
The Bench said the petitions required to be decided one way or the other. Officials from IIT informed the Court that admission to more than 33,000 seats was over and fresh round of counselling would begin on Monday.
The Bench directed stay of the admission process noting that it will decide the future course of action on Monday. The Court hinted that even if bonus marks are to be awarded, the Centre is bound by a decision of the apex court of 2005 which held that such marks could be awarded only to candidates who attempted the question. Venugopal stated that since there was a negative mark for each wrong answer, there was possibility that many students chose not to attempt the defective question.
The Bench assured it would decide what is to be done for the interim as the career of lakhs of students was at stake.