Court held that allegations of duplicity in JEE candidate registrations lacked sufficient evidence to revise eligibility criteria, reaffirming the integrity of established examination processes.

JUDGMENT

Sanjeev Narula, J. (Oral):

CM APPL. 35615/2022 (u/S 151 of the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908 on behalf of Petitioner for directions)

1. Petitioner, an aspirant of B. Tech course, has appeared in both Session 1 and Session 2 of the Joint Entrance Examination (Main) 2022 ["JEE (Main)"] under the `General/(UR)' Category and her better score is 88.2866394 which is below the cut-off NTA score of 88.4121383. She has approached this Court seeking directions to appear for the Joint Entrance Examination (Advanced) 2022 ["JEE (Advanced)"], alleging that the Common Rank List ["CRL"] prepared by Respondent No. 1 - National Testing Agency ["NTA"] is erroneous as it has duplicity of candidates and if the same is corrected, she would become eligible as her score is in the vicinity of the qualifying percentile noted above.

2. The scheme of the JEE examinations, is as follows:

i. A candidate is required to register by filling-up an online application form, through which a "system generated application number" is allocated. Candidates are allowed two opportunities to write the JEE (Main), which are described as Session 1 and Session 2, for which, candidates are to use the same application number. It is, however, not mandatory to appear in both sessions.

ii. Scores are obtained on a percentile basis, and are not an aggregate or average of the marks obtained. If a candidate appears in both sessions, the higher score of the two is considered as final for each subject, total of which forms the "Total NTA Score" of a candidate.

iii. NTA announces the "All India Rank based on Final NTA Score" which is a rank list, and further declares "Cut-off Total NTA Score based on Paper 1 (B.E./B.Tech.)" for general as well as reserved categories. These are used by candidates for - (i) seat allocation to many premier engineering colleges such as NITs, NSIT, DTU ["NIT+ institutions"] through a Joint Seat Allocation Authority ["JoSAA"] which considers the All India Rank; and/or (ii) qualifying to write the JEE (Advanced) for attaining admission into IITs through the cut-off NTA Score for the said exam.¹

iv. On 7th/8th August, 2022, NTA declared the Cut-off Total NTA Score based on Paper 1 (B.E./B.Tech.). The cut-off for the general/unreserved category is 88.4121383.

v. In terms of Clause 11 of the Information Bulletin for JEE (Main)- 2022 issued by NTA, 2,50,000 candidates are to be shortlisted for JEE (Advanced).

3. Petitioner had pointed out duplication of candidates by placing reliance on score cards which were filed on record on 17th August, 2022. On the said date, while issuing notice, the Court had allowed Petitioner's application for JEE (Advanced) to be processed and registered. The matter was thereafter posted for 22nd August, 2022 to enable NTA to take instructions and file a response. On 22nd August, 2022, following order was passed and the matter was posted for 23rd August 2022:

1. Mr. Abhishek Khanna, counsel for Respondent No. 1 - NTA, seeks and is granted one day's accommodation to file the counter affidavit.

2. While allowing the same, the Court has specifically queried from Mr. Khanna as to whether the issue of duplication arising from multiple registrations/applications by the same candidate(s) for the two sessions of JEE (Main) Examination 2022, as alleged by Petitioner, has been examined by the NTA. To this question, Mr. Khanna has responded vaguely without giving any clarity. He however points out that as of now, about 2,62,000 candidates have been considered in the Common Rank List ("CRL") as against the requirement of 2,50,000 candidates as per the information bulletin. This, he submits, results from a stipulation contained in clause 11 of information bulletin stating that "The total number of candidates may be slightly greater than 2,50,000 in the presence of "tied" ranks/scores in any category".

3. The above-stated submission, however, does not address the concern of the Court qua the issue of duplication pointed out by Pet