New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Thursday (January 9) agreed to examine a plea challenging a notification bringing down the number of attempts from three to two for the Joint Entrance Examination (JEE)-Advanced aspirants.
The matter came up before a bench comprising Justice BR Gavai and Justice Augustine George Masih.
The counsel representing the petitioner told the bench that the matter pertains to the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) admission entrance examination in which the number of attempts for aspirants have been reduced from three to two and a similar plea was listed before the bench on January 10.
The bench directed both the pleas be tagged.
JAB changed eligibility criteria in an arbitrary manner: Petitioner
The fresh plea has said that the joint admission board (JAB), which is entrusted to conduct the JEE-Advanced exam, changed the eligibility criteria for admissions into the IITs in an arbitrary manner and this abrupt changes in the eligibility criteria for entering the IITs has affected the petitioner as well as thousands of similarly situated persons denying them a valuable opportunity to enter the IITs.
Change disentitled and disqualified many students from taking the JEE-Advanced 2025 exam: Petitioner
“The JAB, vide its press release dated November 5, 2024, first fixed the permissible number of attempts for JEE-Advanced at three, only to change it abruptly vide another press release dated November 18, 2024, and thereby reducing the number of attempts to two,” the plea has said adding that the change in the eligibility criteria disentitled and disqualified many students from taking the JEE-Advanced 2025 exam.
Plea has sought setting aside of notification bringing down number of attempts from three to two
The plea, seeking setting aside of the November 18, 2024 press release, has further said that the change in eligibility criteria for entering the IITs was against the principles of natural justice and the impugned notification by the JAB is also in violation of principles of legitimate expectation and promissory estoppel.
