JEE Advanced 2021: Supreme Court allows students to make representation before authority

The petitioners cleared the JEE Main in 2021 but are aggrieved by a clause that requires a candidate to take the examination only within two years of clearing Class 12, though age limit as per the clause is 25 years. 

The Supreme Court has allowed a group of students, who are aggrieved by a clause in the JEE Advanced 2021 information brochure that requires a candidate to take the examination within two years of clearing Class 12, to make representation before the appropriate authority on the issue. The JEE Advanced 2021 is scheduled to be held on October 3, 2021.

A bench headed by Justice AM Khanwilkar said it appeared that petitioners had directly approached the apex court without making representation to the appropriate authority of the Chairman, Joint Admission Board, JEE Advanced office, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kharagpur. 

“Accordingly, we dispose of this writ petition with liberty to the petitioners to make representation before the appropriate authority of respondent number two (Chairman, Joint Admission Board), in the first place,” said the bench. 

Decide before closing date of JEE Advanced registration: SC 

The bench said in its order that the representation be decided expeditiously, preferably before the closing date of submission of the application of JEE Advanced 2021. “We are not expressing any opinion one way or the other with regard to the correctness of the claim set up in the present petition,” it said, adding, ‘All questions of law are left open”. 

The top court was hearing a petition, filed by five students, who had passed Class 12 examinations in the 2018-19 academic year and said as per the criteria set in the 2021 information brochure, the JEE Advanced 2020 was their final attempt to secure admission into institutions of excellence such as IIT. 

They had sought the Supreme Court’s direction that ineligibility prescribed in criterion 4 of clause 11 of the information brochure insofar is “arbitrary and violative” of Article 14 of the Constitution. The plea said the petitioners had appeared for JEE Advanced exam conducted in September 2020, but could not perform well due to disruptions in preparation caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. 

 Read more:

• JEE Advanced 2021 registration time revised, check new schedule here
• JEE Main 2021 cutoff lower than last year: Check category-wise qualifying cutoff
• JEE Main 2021 topper interview: To achieve big in life, focus on procedure, not just the answer: Pal Aggarwal, AIR 1