Delhi high court rejects PIL attempting to delay IIT admission
PIL was filed earlier this year by an IIT-Kharagpur professor underlining that several seats are falling vacant in the absence of a common counselling
New Delhi: The Delhi high court has rejected a public interest litigation (PIL) seeking interference in the admission process of Indian Institutes of Technology this year, the human resource development (HRD) ministry said on Saturday.
While declining to allow common counselling between IITs and the National Institutes of Technology (NITs), the court said it “cannot be forgotten that for the sake of filling up the seats, the academic calendar devised by the professional experts at IITs, owing to whose efforts the said institutions have today reached the exalted position which they occupy, leading to the vacant seats therein being called a national waste, cannot be disturbed".
The case came up on Friday but the ministry issued a statement quoting portions of the judgement late on Saturday. A PIL was filed earlier this year by Rajiv Kumar, a professor at IIT, Kharagpur, underlining that several seats are falling vacant in the absence of a common counselling.
The court appreciated the view that IITs have a very thorough process and have already started their academic session in time. The Court had some additional queries on whether SC/ST seats that remain vacant can be converted to general category seats and whether lateral entry can be made in the second year to fill up vacant seats.
The ministry said that common counselling was being examined by a technical committee constituted by the HRD ministry and a common seat allocation can be implemented only from 2015. India has 16 functioning IITs and 30 NITs.
The high court has also issued a directions to the HRD ministry and IITs to consider, whether the reserved category seats in the IITs, if remaining unfilled, can be transferred to the general category and take a decision on the said aspect on or before 30 November and inform the court accordingly.
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