The Supreme Court has allowed JEE Advanced candidates who left college between November 5 and November 18 last year to register for the upcoming exam. The court on Friday allowed the petitioners who left the course to register for the Joint Entrance Examination (JEE)-Advanced. A bench of Justices B R Gavai and Augustine George Masih passed this order while hearing petitions against reducing the number of attempts given to JEE-Advanced candidates from three to two.
The apex court said the Joint Entrance Board (JAB), which is tasked with conducting the JEE-Advanced exam, had issued a press release on November 5 last year stating that students appearing for class 12 exams in the academic years 2023, 2024 and 2025 would be eligible to appear for the JEE-Advanced exam. The bench said another press release was issued on November 18, 2024, restricting the eligibility to only two academic years - 2024 and 2025.
Two petitions were being heard
The bench said, "If the students have left their course in accordance with the said representation (November 5) with the understanding that they would be entitled to take the JEE exam, then they cannot be harmed by the decision of November 18, 2024." Without considering the merits of the JAB's decision, the apex court said that students who leave the course between November 5 and November 18, 2024 will also be allowed to register for the exam. The apex court was hearing two petitions, one of which was filed by 22 candidates, challenging the reduction of the number of attempts for JEE-Advanced from three to two.
What was in the petition?
During the hearing, the counsel appearing for the petitioners said that due to the promise made in the press release dated November 5, 2024, they left the college to appear in the examination conducted for admission to IITs. Another petition filed through advocate Sanjit Kumar Trivedi said that the matter pertains to the process of admission to IITs and the JAB has arbitrarily changed the eligibility criteria for students.
The petition filed by a candidate said, "JAB first fixed the allowable number of attempts for JEE-Advanced as three through its press release dated November 5, 2024, but suddenly changed it by issuing another press release dated November 18, 2024 and thus reduced the number of attempts to two."
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