The judgment emphasizes the importance of digital evidence and the burden of proof in establishing the authenticity of documents in legal proceedings.

JUDGMENT

Sanjeev Narula, J. (Oral) - Petitioner, an aspirant of B.Tech. course, is ineligible to appear in the Joint Entrance Examination (Advanced) 2022 ['JEE (Advanced)'] as his score in the Joint Entrance Examination (Main) 2022 ['JEE (Main)'] is below the qualifying/cut-off percentile which is determined by Respondent No. 1 - National Testing Agency ['NTA']. He emphatically asserts to the contrary and has produced score cards for both sessions 1 and 2 of the JEE (Main) which, as per him, render him eligible; but these, regrettably for him, do not match with the NTA record. For the above reasons, Petitioner invokes Article 226 of the Constitution of India to seek mandamus to the Respondents to correct his score cards and to allow him to appear in JEE (Advanced).

2. The scheme of the JEE (Main), in brief, is as follows:

2.1. A candidate is required to register by filling an online application form, through which a 'system generated application number' is allocated, which, along with security pin and date of birth, serves as the candidate's login credentials. This login ID and password/pin al Section 65B of the so enable the candidates to view their individual results.

2.2. Candidates are allowed two opportunities to write the exam, which are described as Session 1 and Session 2. It is not mandatory to appear in both the sessions. Scores are on a percentile basis, and are not an aggregate or average of the marks obtained. If a candidate appears in both the sessions, the higher score of the two is considered as final for each subject, the total of which forms the 'Total NTA score' of the candidate.

2.3. The JEE (Main) scores remain valid for one year and can be used by a candidate for writing JEE (Advanced) for attaining admission into IITs, NITs, NSIT, DTU, and many other engineering colleges.

Petitioner's submissions:

3. The version of facts as narrated by the Petitioner, is as follows:

3.1. An admit card (Annexure P-2) was issued to him for session 1 of JEE (Main) and he appeared for the said exam on 29th June, 2022. The result of the same was declared on 10th July, 2022.

3.2. The document annexed as Annexure P-3 is the score card downloaded by him from the website of NTA, which shows his Total NTA Score as 98.7968939.

3.3. In order to improve his results, he also registered for and appeared in session 2 of the afore-said exam, which was held on 22nd July, 2022.

3.4. Results of JEE (Main) session 2 were declared on 07th August, 2022, and this time, as per Annexure P-5, which he claims is the score card for session 2 also downloaded from NTA website, his total NTA Score is 99.2356167, which is an improvement over the score obtained in session 1.

3.5. On declaration of final result, NTA declared the qualifying percentile for writing JEE (Advanced), which is referred to as the 'Cut-off Total NTA Score based on Paper 1 (B.E./B.Tech.)', for Common Rank List (CRL), as 88.4121383. According to Petitioner, he had breezed through the qualifier, considering his scores for either of the two sessions.

3.6. However, on 10th August, 2022, when Petitioner attempted to apply for the JEE (Advanced) through Respondent's online application portal, the system generated a pop-up window displaying the following message -

'Not eligible for JEE (Advanced) 2022. You have scored less than the cut-off mark in JEE Main 2022'.

3.7. Upon further inquiry, the Petitioner was tormented by finding out that his scores were reduced from 98.7968939 and 99.2356167 to 20.7668939 and 14.6356167 percentiles in Session 1 and 2 respectively, which, he claims to have been manipulated.

4. During the hearing that took place on 11th August, 2022, which was taken up on a holiday due to urgency expressed by the Petitioner's counsel, NTA had sought time to retrieve their records. Thus, a limited interim relief was granted to the Petitioner by allowing him to only register for JEE (Advanced), and in the meantime parties were directed to complete the pleadings. Today, Mr. Harsh Peechara, co