In a hearing passed today on July 7, the Supreme Court has stayed the ongoing counselling of engineering aspirants across the country. The bench of two judges Dipak Misra and A M Khanwilkar, who were hearing the petition filed by an IIT aspirant regarding the additional marks provided to the aspirants who had taken JEE Advanced 2017 examination, stayed the counselling procedure. JoSAA (Joint Seat Allocation Authority), which is responsible for counselling in IITs, NITs , IIITs and 20 GFTIs will also have to hold their counselling procedure till the SC further orders regarding the matter. 

The apex court on June 30 had ordered the IIT Madras, institute responsible for conducting JEE Advanced 2017, to respond with the reason it provided 18 bonus marks to all the students who took the examination; irrespective of the fact whether they attempted the ambiguous questions or not. Both IIT Madras and JoSAA has notified the students about the direction of the apex court and informed students about the suspension of counselling procedure till further orders. 

According to a report published by TOI it was mentioned that in an affidavit filed by IIT Madras it stated that the ‘relief is entirely against equity’ and it will affect the ongoing counselling procedure in which approx 30,000 students have already accepted their seats. The JoSAA has already completed the first round of seat allotment and made the second round seat allotment results public. The TOI report further stated that the IIT Madras in their affidavit has mentioned that decision to provide bonus marks to students was taken by a committee looking after the matter. 

The court will further hear the matter on July 10. Counselling procedure will remain suspended for this while and JoSAA will only be able to proceed after the next hearing from the apex court in the matter.