New Delhi: The Supreme Court Monday allowed the counseling and admissions into Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) across the country on the basis of the results of the IIT-JEE (Advance) 2017 results by vacating its stay on it. The apex court bench headed by Justice Dipak Misra vacated its stay ordered last Friday, but asked high courts not to interfere in the petitions regarding counseling and admission to the IITs to avoid any confusion.
Counseling is a process in which a candidate, who clears the entrance examination, chooses the best college and stream according to his or her choice based on their rank. The bench, also comprising Justices A M Khanwilkar and M M Shantanagoudar, asked the IITs to give an undertaking that such mistakes will not recur and make sure that no situation in which bonus marks have to be awarded arose in future. Attorney General KK Venugopal, representing the IITs, agreed to this.
The bench said the 2005 judgement in Guru Nanak University case will not apply in the present matter as a huge number of students were involved and there was a system of negative marking in the exam. The apex court also noted that an experts’ body of IITs had met twice to decide that bonus marks should be awarded across the board for the wrong questions. The Supreme Court had on July 7 restrained the IITs from conducting further counseling and admissions saying the court will go by its earlier judgement of 2005 and bonus marks cannot be given to those who have not attempted the wrong questions.
The AG had, however, pointed out that there was negative marking for every unsuccessful question and there may be some students who had opted not to answer “the said vague questions fearing negative marking”.
Press Trust of India