IIT hopes dashed as 'glitch' erases Gujarat student's answer sheet

When the incident made headlines, the 17-year-old's parents received several calls from students across the country facing similar issues

A Vadodara JEE applicant was compelled to move the Gujarat High Court after a technical glitch allegedly erased his Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) Mains response sheet.

The plea noted that the student, Khush Keyush Patel was first shown to have scored 300 out of 300 marks in the JEE-Mains response sheet online but a few hours later the result showed that he had not attempted a single question.

The student hoped to appear for the June 4 exam. However, the High Court refused to grant him interim relief after the National Testing Agency (NTA) said that there was no technical issue in recording his Mains result and that he had selected “no response” to the 75 questions he attempted, Indian Express reported on Friday.

Patel told the publication that it "bothered" him that the NTA questioned his eligibility based on the score he alleged was due to a “glitch”.

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“My eligibility was questioned in court (by NTA) as I scored seven percentile (on account of not attempting any question, as per NTA records) in JEE Mains. My only request was that I be allowed to appear for the JEE Advanced exams but that was not allowed by the court on the grounds of eligibility,” he said.

A screen recording that he made when downloading the response form at 7:03 am on April 20 that showed the responses he had marked is a key piece of evidence in Patel's favour, according to IE.

As per the provisional answer key, tallied with his own response sheet of marked answers, Patel scored 300 out of 300. The NTA, however, cited the absence of the taskbar and mouse pointer movements in the screen recording as evidence that the tape might have been altered. Meanwhile, Patel said that he has disabled his taskbar as a personal preference and he was operating through keyboard shortcuts.

“NTA says I may have panicked or got nervous or was depressed and did not answer a single question. How is that even possible? I have appeared for 50-60 mock tests, simulated to the test conditions and have always scored well,” Patel said.

The report added that ever since the incident made headlines, the 17-year-old's parents have received several calls from students across the country facing similar issues.

Meanwhile, his lawyer Dhaval Vyas told the publication that he received 40-50 calls from students from across the state including Maharashtra, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, Delhi, and Gujarat.

Patel had ranked in the top 20 in most all-India mock tests that he attempted in the past four years. He told the publication that he was sure of acing the highly competitive exams. Patel, who has been preparing for IIT JEE exams for the past four years, said IIT was his sole focus. “I did not apply to the other entrance tests, but now I’ll have to research where all I can apply."