Published 11:23 IST, December 10th 2020
'Grant interim admission to student who clicked on wrong link': SC to IIT Bombay
SC on Wednesday issued notice to IIT Bombay, directing the institution to grant interim admission to Agra student, who had clicked on a wrong link
The Supreme Court on Wednesday came to the rescue of a 18-year old student from Agra who lost his admission to IIT-Bombay after he inadvertently clicked a wrong link during the online admission process. According to PTI, a bench headed by Justice SK Kaul, comprising Justices Dinesh Maheshwari and Hrishikesh Roy took note of the submissions of lawyer Pralhad on behalf of Siddhant Batra and directed IIT Bombay to grant interim admission to the student, who had secured an all-India rank of 270 in JEE.
SC directs IIT Bombay to grant interim admission
The bench order read, "In the meantime, by interim order, we direct that the petitioner should be permitted to join the respondent-institution and pursue his course subject to fulfilment of all other formalities."
The Special Leave Petition (SLP) in the Supreme court was filed by Advocate Pratiksha Sharma and was argued by Senior Advocate Basava Prabhu S Patil. Earlier, the Bombay High Court had dismissed the student's petition by noting the submissions of IIT Bombay. The submissions from the institute said that the apex cannot intervene at this stage as all the seats for the course were full and moreover, the admission rules had to be followed.
The SLP filed in the Supreme Court read, "From a reading of the representation dated 21.11.2020, it is clear that the Respondents have rejected the same on their own interpretation of the declaration stated herein above and have construed the withdrawal of the Petitioner from the further seat allocation process of withdrawn from the seat already allotted in First round...."
Siddhant, who lives with his grandparents following the death of his parents, said that he had worked really hard against all odds to crack IIT JEE exams. In his plea to the apex court, he said that while he was filling out the admission process online, he came upon a page with 'freeze' option, which he thought, meant confirming the seat and completion of his admission process. The student further stated that by clicking the 'freeze' option he thought that he had already been allotted the seat of his choice and he need not participate any further in the subsequent round of seat allocation process.
The petition said, "On October 31, 2020, when he was surfing the IIT portal to check for further updates, he came upon a link which carried a declaration that read 'I would like to withdraw from the seat allocation process of JoSAA (Joint Seat Allocation Authority')."
The student also stated that when the final list was released in November, he notices that his name in the admission list was excluded. The petition said that in such a case, IIT Bombay had the powers and the authority to grant a superintendence seat to the petitioner as per Section 13 of the IIT Act, 1961, but still the institution rejected the petition.
(With PTI inputs)
Updated 11:23 IST, December 10th 2020