The court also hinted that it might follow its own verdict from 2005
At that time, it held that bonus marks for a wrong question can be given only to those who attempted the question.
NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Friday found faults in IIT's decision to award 18 bonus marks to students for wrong and vague questions in the Joint Entrance Examination (Advanced) paper and stayed the ongoing counselling and admission in IIT's NIITs,IIT's and all government-funded engineering colleges.
The apex court's decision comes at a time when 33,000 candidates have already taken admissions in various IITs across the country.
The apex court's decision comes at a time when 33,000 candidates have already taken admissions in various IITs across the country.
As the next counselling session is to start from Monday, a bench of Justices Dipak Misra and A M Khanwilkar restrained all engineering colleges from inducting students till the controversy over the bonus marks was adjudicated by it.
The bench is examining IIT's decision to award 18 bonus marks to all the candidates (11 marks for incorrect questions in Paper II and 7 marks for incorrect questions in Paper I) irrespective of whether they attempted the said questions or not.
Questioning the validity of the decision, the bench said that the apex court had in 2005 held that bonus marks for wrong questions could be given to only those students who attempted the question.
The bench had agreed to examine plea of two students who challenged IIT's decision. The bench also restrained high court from entertaining any petition on the issue and posted the case to July 10 to pass order after examining all options to solve the problem.
"It is a problem and it has to be solved at the earliest ... We will think about the solution but don't create further confusion by giving admission," the bench said.
Attorney General KK Venugopal, appearing for IIT, ruled out re-evaluation of answer papers saying it was not possible as 2.5 lakh students had taken the examination.
He said that two wrong questions were there in only one out of ten sets of question papers which was in Hindi Medium and it was impossible to find out students who opted to take entrance examination in Hindi. He said that there was only two practical options available — either to continue with the bonus marks or to strike out the wrong questions.
"We do not know who took test in Hindi. It is very difficult to find out and that is why it was decided that bonus marks be given to all students. Till date, more than 33,000 have already taken admission and whole process would have to be started afresh if merit list is revised," Venugopal said.
"It is respectfully submitted that the relief is entirely against equity since the process of seat allocation is going on and around 33,000 candidates have already accepted the allotted seat and reported for physical verification of the documents .It is submitted that in case ongoing counselling and admission process is disturbed, the admission procedure of more than 36,000 students in 97 institutes under the joint seat allocation programme for IITs, NIITs, IIITs and GFTIs (Government Funded Technical Institutions) would be scrapped," IIT said in its affidavit.
Senior advocate Vikas Singh and lawyer D K Devesh, appearing for the students, said that IIT's decision to award bonus marks to all the candidates was arbitrary and illegal.
They added that even though the petitioners qualified the exam, their ranking in the merit list was affected due to bonus marks. The students said that their overall rank had gone down by several notches due to the controversial decision and pleaded the court to strike down the decision.
They added that even though the petitioners qualified the exam, their ranking in the merit list was affected due to bonus marks. The students said that their overall rank had gone down by several notches due to the controversial decision and pleaded the court to strike down the decision.
The Supreme Court on Friday restrained the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) till further orders from conducting counselling or admitting students subsequent to this year's Joint Entrance Examination.
A Bench of Justices Dipak Misra and A.M. Khanwilkar also restrained the High Courts from entertaining any petition relating to counselling and admissions to the IITs from July 7 onwards.
It sought details of the petitions pending before the High Courts and the number of petitions challenging the IIT-Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) 2017 rank list, and awarding of additional marks to all candidates who appeared for the test.
The Bench listed the matter for further hearing on July 10.
On June 30, the court issued notice to the Ministry of Human Resource Development on a plea seeking the quashing of the IIT-JEE 2017 rank list.
The petition, filed by IIT aspirant Aishwarya Agarwal, sought the court’s direction to declare that the action of awarding “bonus marks” to the candidates who appeared in the JEE (Advanced) 2017 examination was wrong and violated her right, as well as that of other students.
It sought a direction to prepare an all-India rank list after rectifying the scores of JEE (Advanced) and also award marks for the incorrect questions to those who attempted the right answers.
As an alternative, the petitioner said, the institution should conduct fresh examination and prepare a fresh merit list or grant all students another opportunity to appear in the next year examination.
The petition also sought an interim stay on the merit list and the counselling, saying it would cause serious prejudice to the petitioner and other deserving candidates.
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