SC Orders to Resume IIT-JEE Counselling 2017; JoSAA Round 3 Seat Allotment Announced

Supreme Court of India has given the green signal for resuming the counselling of JEE Advanced 2017. The apex court took the decision today, on July 10, 2017. It announced that JoSAA counselling shall continue as per the existing merit list. To this, IITs wasted no time and have announced Round 3 seat allotment as well.

The candidates may check the seat allotment from the official website of JoSAA, which is josaa.nic.in. To check the allotment, the candidates will have to enter the JEE Main Roll Number, Password and Security Code. If the candidate is satisfied with the allotment, then they are to accept the seat, with July 11 to 13, 2017. The candidates may check the new schedule of JoSAA 2017 Round 3 from the image below. The schedule for further rounds will be announced soon.

The SC explained that the judgment for 2005 Guru Nanak University case cannot be applied here. It is because this case involves a huge number of students, half of whom have already been allocated seats. As per the report of IIT, until the second allotment of JoSAA counselling, almost 30000 students were allocated seats across engineering colleges in India.

“We are inclined to vacate the order passed on July 7 and also convey that we are not inclined to interfere with the counselling and admission process, and high courts should act accordingly and not interfere in the admission process,” ordered SC.

Another reason to vacate the stay is that in JEE Advanced there is a system of negative marking.  As explained by Attorney General  K K Venugopal, representer for IITs, the system of negative marking might have discourages the students from attempting the questions. Hence, to make fair judgment it was decided to award grace marks to all the candidates.

SC has also considered that a committee of experts met twice to work out the most unbiased method to compensate the glitch in the question paper. And only after thorough analysis, the decision to give bonus marks was determined. Also, the procedure to check the answer sheet of 2 lakh candidates was an arduous task, hence, awarding bonus marks across the boards was more rational decision.

For the inconvenience caused, the apex court has warned IITs and has demanded that mistakes such as the error in the question paper should not be repeated again. Justice A M Khanwilkar and M M Shantanagoudar, heading the bench, demanded IITs to give an undertaking that similar mistake causing the awarding of bonus marks should not happen in future. To which, Attorney General  K K Venugopal, the respirator for IITs, assured the same.

Addressing the High Courts, the SC ordered that the lower courts are not supposed to entertain any request for the same by the students. The verdict of the SC is final and now the seats will be allocated on the basis of the existing merit list only.

The entire matter of 18 bonus marks came to light after two JEE Advanced qualifiers filed a petition, stating that the bonus marks has adversely affected their merit, which in return has refrained them from getting admission in good college.

Then, on June 30, SC demanded an explanation from IIT Madras and Center on why bonus marks must not be removed from the merit list. It gave both the bodies a week’s time and on July 07, 2017, second hearing of the matter was conducted.

In its defense, IIT Madras pointed out that already two rounds of JoSAA counselling have been held and nearly 30000 students have been allocated seat. The renewal of the merit list will cause more confusion and will be more unfair to those who have accepted the seats. SC then took few days time and on July 10, 2017, laid down its final verdict.

How fair do you think SC’s decision is? Are the reasons given by IIT valid? Is this the best possible option in this scenario? Tell us your views by leaving a comment below.