The Supreme Court of India, on Friday, ruled in favor of allowing students who discontinued their academic courses between November 5 and November 18, 2024, to register for the Joint Entrance Examination (JEE)-Advanced. The decision, announced by Justices B R Gavai and Augustine George Masih, came amidst hearings on pleas challenging the reduction in the number of permissible attempts for the examination from three to two.
Initially, the Joint Admission Board (JAB), which oversees the JEE-Advanced exam, issued a press release on November 5, 2024, stating that students who appeared for the Class 12 exams in the academic years 2023, 2024, and 2025 would be eligible for the JEE-Advanced. However, a subsequent press release on November 18 restricted eligibility to just the 2024 and 2025 academic years.
The Supreme Court found that students who acted on the initial announcement by dropping out of their courses did so with the understanding they would be eligible to attempt the JEE-Advanced exam. The court held that revoking this eligibility with the November 18 announcement was unjust to those students and could not be permitted to adversely affect them.
This judicial intervention provides a resolution for the affected students, permitting them to register for the JEE-Advanced test despite the eligibility criteria changes. The Court refrained from commenting on the merits of JAB’s decision to alter the attempt limits but focused on the fairness of the process for students who had made significant decisions based on the board’s initial communication.
The case brought to light issues regarding the process of admissions into prestigious Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) and the seemingly arbitrary changes to eligibility criteria by the JAB. One of the pleas, represented by advocate Sanjeet Kumar Trivedi, argued that the abrupt reduction in the number of attempts from three to two had disadvantaged many prospective students.
