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SUPREME COURT OF INDIA
R.V. RAVEENDRAN & A.K. PATNAIK
Sanchit Bansal & Another
Versus
The Joint Admission Board (JAB) & Others
CIVIL APPEAL NO.8520 OF 2011 [Arising out of SLP [C] No.13495 of 2010]
Decided on: 11-10-2011
(1984) 4 SCC 27; (2009) 11 SCC 726; (2007) 4 SCC 737 – Relied upon
(b) Administration of Justice – Judicial Review – Technical Education – Admission – Appellants alleging mala fides – Not showing any motive – Alleging setting of particular cut-off marks to deny appellant 1 a seat in IIT – Manipulation for one candidate out of 2,87,000 students is far-fetched – Not acceptable. (Para 20)
(c) Administration of Justice – Judicial Review – Technical Education – Admission – Cut-off marks – In aggregate and in individual subjects – Appellant 1 securing cut-off marks in aggregate but not in Chemistry – Not selected – No infirmity. (Para 21)
(d) Administration of Justice – Judicial Review – Technical Education – Admission – JAB required to select 5500 students from 287,000 – Deciding to adopt variable cut-off marks for best and consistently performing students – No infirmity. (Para 22)
(e) Right to Information Act, 2005 – Section 6 – Appellant alleging supply of two different versions vitiating the selection process – The information not found to be different but initially giving minimum information but later, detailed information – No infirmity. (Para 23)
Facts of the case:
Admission to undergraduate courses in fifteen IITs as also IT--BHU and ISM, Dhanbad is through the Common Entrance Examination known as the Joint Entrance Examination (for short IIT-JEE). IIT-JEE is conducted every year by a different IIT on a rotation basis and is supervised by the Joint Admission Board (JAB or the `Board’), the first respondent herein.
The first appellant (son of a Professor in an IIT) appeared in the IIT-JEE 2006, as a general category candidate. He secured 75 marks in Methamatics, 104 marks in Physics and 52 marks in Chemistry, aggregating to 231. The Board had fixed the cut off marks for admission as 37 for Maths, 48 for Physics and 55 for Chemistry and the aggregate cut off marks as 154. As first appellant did not secure the minimum of 55 marks in chemistry he was not qualified, even though his aggregate in the three subjects was very high.
The selection process was challenged on grounds of mala fides.
The High Court declined to interfere.
Finding of the Court:
No interference is required in the impugned judgment.
Result:Appeal dismissed.
Judgment :-
R.V. Raveendran, J.
Heard. Leave granted.
2. The first appellant is the son of second appellant who is a Professor in the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT for short), Kharagpur. Admission to undergraduate courses in fifteen IITs as also IT--BHU and ISM, Dhanbad is through the Common Entrance Examination known as the Joint Entrance Examination (for short IIT-JEE). The said examination is considered to be the toughest entrance examination in India, with more than 50 candidates vying for each seat in the said examination. IIT-JEE is conducted every year by a different IIT on a rotation basis and is supervised by the Joint Admission Board (JAB or the `Board'), the first respondent herein. The first appellant appeared in the IIT-JEE 2006, as a general category candidate. He secured 75 marks in Methamatics, 104 marks in Physics and 52 marks in Chemistry, aggregating to 231. The Board had fixed the cut off marks for admission as 37 for Maths, 48 for Physics and 55 for Chemistry and the aggregate cut off marks as 154. As first appellant did not secure the minimum of 55 marks in chemistry he was not qualified, even though his aggregate in the three subjects was very high.
3. The second appellant wrote a letter dated 5.9.2006 to all the IIT Chairmen/Directors alleging anomalies and inherent contradictions in the selection process. He alleged that the cut off marks were fixed arbitrarily and with malafides in a manner that a student such as the first appellant with 231 marks was found to be not qualified whereas a student who got aggregate marks of 154 was found to have qualified. The appellants also filed several applications under the Right to Information Act 2005 and collected considerable data. The appellants claim that when they sought information about the procedure for computation of cut off marks for JEE 2006 the organising Chairman, JEE 2006 gave two different versions at different points of time.
4. The first response given by the Organizing Chairman, JEE 2006 on 14.5.2007 read as follows :
“Procedure for computation of cut-off marks etc. for JEE 2006
1. “Consistent with announced criteria of “Ranking” and “Tie-breaking” given in Section 11.1 and
11.2 of the Information Brochure of JEE 2006 the different cut-offs were decided.
2. On the basis of overall performance of candidates who appeared in all the three subjects (Mathematics, Physics & Chemistry), mean marks of each of the three subjects along with standard deviation was determined. The cut-off in each subject was decided as mean marks minus one standard deviation. Further depending on the number of candidates required to be qualified on All India basis, the aggregate marks cut-off was obtained. The cut-off marks of individual subject and aggregate are given below for GE category candidates:-
Mathematics 37
Physics 48
Chemistry 55
Aggregate 154”
The second response given by the organizing Chairman, JEE 2006 on 12.7.2007 was as under:
“Procedure for cut-off determination in JEE-2006:
(i) For each subject, mean and standard deviation of the marks obtained are computed. For this computation only scores of those candidates who have secured minimum 1 (one) mark in each of the three subjects have been considered.
(ii) The cut-off marks of an individual subject is calculated as Cut-off mark of a subject = Mean of the marks for the subject - Standard deviation of the marks for the subject
The result has been rounded to the nearest integer.
(iii) The mean and standard deviation of the aggregate marks are calculated for those candidates who score at least one mark in each subject
(iv) The aggregate cut-off mark is calculated as Aggregate cut-off = (Mean of aggregate marks -Standard deviation of aggregate marks) rounded to nearest integer
+ a positive number
The number selected for counseling (i.e. qualified in JEE-2006 for counseling) is 1.3 X the number of seats available in all participating Institutions. Each time 1(one) mark is added to the mean-standa
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