Odisha HRD

Orissa JEE counseling drags on further

October 2nd, 2007

Following are excerpts from a New Indian Express report.

… the Orissa High Court on Monday directed the State Government to initiate fresh centralised counselling for filling up the seats in the different professional colleges and complete the entire exercise in two weeks.

The single-judge bench of Justice AS Naidu, however, asked the Government and the JEE authorities to declare the total number of seats available in different colleges first and within three days. Students already taken admission would be allowed to exercise their option to switch to available seats of their choice in preferred colleges first and they have to be fixed by JEE in three days after declaration of total seats and this should be followed by the fresh counselling.

The ruling came in response to a batch of writ petitions filed by different college bodies and the Orissa Private Engineering College Association praying for initiation of steps to fill up the seats in the institutions. They submitted that while counselling was on the AICTE granted approval for establishment of new colleges with a combined intake capacity of 240 in each discipline and enhanced seats in different old colleges.

As per norms, 30 percent of the seats were to be filled up by management and AIEEE qualified students by equal share. The rest was to be filled up by JEE qualified students. But despite assurances, the authorities have taken no steps towards filling up the added and enhanced seats.

The petitioners had submitted that AICTE approval was for two years only and the colleges would sustain huge financial loss along with loss of image topped by threat of withdrawal of approval by AICTE during scrutiny. The State Government had earlier and even last year allowed admissions way into October in some institutes but this time it is unyielding, they alleged.

Considering the submissions, the Court observed that discrimination was writ large in the action of authorities and debarred them from taking a different stand this year while allowing admissions to enhanced seats last year.

So as to not cause any prejudice to the students who had already taken admission in different colleges, Justice Naidu said they should be given the chance first to exercise options in seeking switches to colleges or disciplines of their choice.

Entry Filed under: Odisha JEE, AIEEE, BPUT counseling, etc.