The Delhi High Court has asked the IIT Council, the joint admission board of IITs, and the ministry of human resource development to clarify the process of selection through the annual joint entrance examination (JEE).
The three respondents were served notices on Wednesday on a petition by Rajeev Kumar, an IIT-Kharagpur professor who has been struggling for the last four years to get IITs (Indian Institutes of Technology) to reveal the details of their admission process.
“These are the most prestigious institutes in the country. They cannot afford to play with the lives of students. Sometimes, a student scoring 55 marks is rejected and the other scoring 10 is called for counseling,” said Kumar.
He started an RTI investigation into IITs admission process when his son missed an IIT seat by just three marks in the JEE 2006. "In the same year I got to know that there were 994 students who missed an IIT seat despite scoring well,” he added.
Kumar had earlier filed a petition in Kolkata High Court, which was dismissed. He subsequently moved the Delhi High court.
Kumar says his fight has resulted in some improvements, but a lot of needs to be done to inspire full confidence in IITs’ admission process.
"The HRD ministry has set up a committee that will look into possible reforms of IIT JEE and I am hopeful that they will do something to make the system more transparent in the 2010 entrance examination."
The high court has asked the three respondents to reply by mid May.
Currently, there are 15 IITs, including the eight that have been set up the last two years. Over 4 lakh students are expected to appear in JEE scheduled for April 11.