HRD minister Kapil Sibal on Wednesday said he did not break any promise made to the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) faculty on common test for admission in engineering colleges.

He said IIT senate's viewpoint was also considered. "I categorically said if there will be any dissent in the IIT council, there will be no common test. And there was no dissent by IIT council, which consists of IITs, IIITs and NIITs."

He said out of the seven senates, IIT Guwhati, IIT Kharagpur, IIT Madras, IIT Roorkee and IIT Bombay, supported the common test.

He added IITs had two disputes which were agreed by the council. "They wanted the entire control over the IIT exam and we agreed. They wanted that school weightage to be part of only the filtering process, we agreed to it too."

Sibal got enough support from the state governments on common engineering entrance test, but the decision did not go down well with the All India IIT Faculty Federation and IIT alumni association.

The IIT Alumni of Delhi has written to the prime minister asking for his intervention on the IIT entrance row. The association has also threatened to take HRD minister Kapil Sibal to court, saying his decision for a new entrance format is weak as per the IIT Act.

The common entrance exam for admission to all centrally funded technical institutes in the country will be conducted from 2013.

Sibal on May 28 had announced that the two exams of the test - main and advanced - would be multiple-choice question based instead of subjective as the IIT faculty wanted.

IIT alumni in its letter said IIT council chaired by HRD minister overruled the majority opinion of institute faculty. IIT Delhi senate met on Wednesday to discuss the issue.

Except IIT Guwahati and IIT Madras, other IITs - Delhi, Bombay, Kharagpur, Roorkee and Kanpur - voted to advance the test to 2014 and wanted to have  screening test with IITs free to design an advanced subjective type test for final admissions.

IIT council had decided that IITs would screen 50,000 students from main exam of the proposed JEE by adding 50% scores each of school board and the main test. Advanced component of JEE would be designed by IITs and would be the admission test for them.

"We just want the due process of law must be observed. Senate needs to pass an ordinance to decide the admission process of IIT as senate has the supreme power to decide. IIT council does not have the locus to pass the admission process,” Somnath Bharti, president IIT Delhi Alumni Association, said.

He added, “In the history of IITs, JEE never faced any problem. It's only because IIT had complete control over it." He said the standards will be diluted as the common entrance board will have representatives from various states.