SC asks IIT Bombay to grant regular admission to student who 'mistakenly' withdrew seat

The Supreme Court on Wednesday directed the IIT-Bombay to give regular admission to an 18-year-old student who inadvertently lost his seat in electrical engineering course by clicking on a wrong link in the online admission process.

Siddhant Batra, who hails from Agra, had lost his seat after he clicked on a “wrong” link, meant to withdraw from the process.

In a big relief to him, a three-judge bench presided over by Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul directed the IIT-Bombay to grant regular admission to him and disposed of his plea.

In December, the court had asked the institution to give interim admission to the candidate.

Batra, through his lawyer Pralhad Paranjpe, questioned the Bombay High Court November 23 order which dismissed his petition by noting the submissions of the IIT that it cannot intervene at this stage as all the seats for the course were full and the admission rules had to be followed.

It had said Siddhant could apply again next year for JEE (Advanced).

Siddhant had secured All India Rank (AIR) of 270 in JEE Advanced exams.

He sought a direction for creating an additional seat on humanitarian ground.

In the plea, Siddhant, who lives with his grandparents following the death of his parents, said he had worked hard against all odds to crack the IIT-JEE exams.

The petition said he had lost his father when he was a child and was brought up by his mother who died in 2018.

As per his plea, while filling out the admission process online, he came upon a page with ‘freeze’ option, which he thought meant confirming the seat and the completion of his admission process.

“On October 31, 2020 when he was surfing the IIT portal to check for further updates, he came upon a link which carried a declaration that read ‘I would like to withdraw from the seat allocation process of JoSAA (Joint Seat Allocation Authority’,” the petition said.

In November 2020, when the final list of students was uploaded on the IIT portal, his name was not included.