Declining to intervene in the issue, a vacation bench of Justices Sudhanshu Dhulia and KV Vishwanathan, said this prerequisite existed earlier as well. 

“2016, 2017, 2018… This condition was always there that students must have secured 75 per cent, why should we interfere? This is not a matter we want to get into,” the court said.

The Supreme Court was hearing a plea challenging an eligibility criterion for taking the JEE, through which admission to various undergraduate programmes across IITs is carried out. The criterion challenged in the plea required candidates to have secured a minimum of 75% in the aggregate in their Class 12 (or equivalent) board examination.

The counsel for the petitioners alleged that their fundamental rights were violated due to the decision of the National Testing Agency to not extend the waiver of the academic performance-related criteria after the coronavirus pandemic.

“This condition was waived during COVID-19. During that time, the National Testing Agency allowed students to take the JEE Advanced examination without the assessment in Class XII

The lawyer for the aspirants submitted that the applicant has scored 92 percentile in JEE Mains and is eligible to appear in JEE Advance, however, she will not get admission even if she qualifies as her board exam score is less than 75%.

The bench, however, said these are education matters and it has to leave the issue to experts.

Updated: 29 May 2023, 10:28 PM IST