SC Rejects Plea Against Eligibility Criterion Of 75% Marks In Class 12th Board Exams For IITs Admission

The Supreme Court on Monday rejected a plea challenging the eligibility criterion of a 75% score in the higher secondary examination for admission to the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs).

A vacation bench of Justices Sudhanshu Dhulia and KV Vishwanathan said that this existed earlier as well and it wasn’t inclined to intervene in the matter.

The apex court said that these are education matters and it has to defer the issue to the experts.

The bench said that, “This condition was always there, why should we interfere? This is not a matter we want to get into.”

The top court heard a plea filed by Chandan Kumar and others against the eligibility criterion of 75% marks in Class 12 board exams for IITs admissions.

The counsel appeared for the petitioners and asserted that the students were given a waiver during the Covid-19 pandemic and now the same students have greater chances of clearing the examination for admission to prestigious engineering institutes.

The counsel said that, “They have scored more than 98% in Joint Entrance Examination, JEE (Main). These are meritorious students. Kindly allow them.”

Moreover, the lawyer submitted that the applicant has scored 92 percentiles in JEE Mains and is eligible to appear in the JEE Advance. However, she’ll not get admission even if she qualifies as her board exam score is less than 75%.

According to the JEE Advanced brochure released this year, candidates need to secure at least 75% in Class 12 board exams.