Orissa High Court Orders CBI Probe Into Alleged Manipulation In JEE Mains Candidate’s Marks

The Orissa High Court has ordered an enquiry by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) into the alleged manipulation in the mark-sheets of a JEE (Mains) candidate which resulted in denial of his admission in premiere institutes like IITs and NITs.

While criticising the National Testing Agency (NTA) for the avoidable error, the Division Bench of Dr. Justice Bidyut Ranjan Sarangi and Justice Murahari Sri Raman observed,

“The career of a student being involved in this case, this Court is of the considered view that the action of the opposite party no.4 is absolutely arbitrary, unreasonable and contrary to the provisions of law.”

The petitioner had appeared in the Joint Entrance Examination (JEE), 2022. He was required to appear in Paper-I BE/BTECH in Session-I and in the subjects Physics, Chemistry and Mathematics in Session-II. In Session-I, he secured an aggregate score of 98.8810861 which was duly intimated to him by the NTA through email.

Subsequently, he also appeared in Session-II wherein he secured an aggregate score of 98.9374067 which was informed to him by the NTA. After scoring such high marks, the petitioner became hopeful that he would get admission in either in an IIT or NIT and he also scored more than the cut-off to appear in JEE (Advance) Entrance Examination, 2022.

Despite scoring well, he did not receive any intimation letter from the NTA for admission into the top institutions nor he was formally intimated about his eligibility for appearing in JEE (Advance) Entrance Examination.

Being aggrieved by such inaction, the petitioner sought clarifications from the NTA, after which he discovered that he has been assigned only 18.8810861 in respect of Session-I and 33.1374067 in respect of Session-II. So, these inconsistencies took away the right of the petitioner to appear in the JEE (Advance)-2022 and to take admission in colleges like IITs and NITs.

The petitioner thereafter submitted a representation to the concerned authority for necessary correction in the scoring but his final score did not change even after such representation. Therefore, he approached the High Court against such conduct of the NTA by filing a writ petition.

Court’s Observations

The Court took into consideration the sole contention advanced on behalf of the petitioner that as on the basis of the QR Code given by the NTA, the documents were downloaded from the website and also intimation was issued by the NTA stating that the petitioner had secured 98.9374067, he is entitled to get admission into institutions like IITs or NITs.

The Court was of the considered opinion that if the documents relied upon by the petitioner under the annexures, which were said to have been downloaded from the website of opposite parties, are genuine, then he should get admission into a top institution as per his rank.

“But, if the documents are found to be not genuine, then it is to be found out how the same has been obtained by the petitioner, so that such mistake cannot be done by the opposite parties no.1 to 4 in future,” the Court added.

Therefore, the Court deemed it fit in the interest of justice to hand over the matter to CBI for an effective enquiry so as to find out the correctness of the documents filed by the petitioner under the annexures.

“Needless to say, the CBI will take all possible steps to make thorough inquiry and submit a report, taking into account the interest of a student, who wants to take admission pursuant to marks secured by him, as per the documents under Annexures-1 to 4 said to have been provided by the opposite parties no.1 to 4,” the Court ordered.

Before parting with the order, it asked the CBI to submit the inquiry report as early as possible, preferably within a period of four months from the date of communication of the judgment.

Case Title: Anshuman Kanungo v. Union of India & Ors.

Case No.: W.P.(C) No. 20579 of 2022

Date of Judgment: August 17, 2023

Counsel for the Petitioner: Mr. S. Palit, Sr. Advocate along with M/s. A.K. Pandey, K. Rath and G.C. Moharana, Advocates

Counsel for the Respondents: Mr. P.K. Parhi, DSGI along with Mr. D.R. Bhokta, CGC; M/s. N.K. Sahu, B. Swain, S.K. Nayak, A. Panda, I. Ray, S.S. Sahu and N.R. Sahoo, Advocates

Citation: 2023 LiveLaw (Ori) 87

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