SC junks students' plea over attempts for JEE-Advanced 2025 exam

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Monday dismissed a plea seeking a direction to allow students, who had cleared their Class 12 exams in 2023, to participate in JEE-Advanced 2025 for securing admissions in the prestigious IITs.

A bench of Justices B R Gavai and Augustine George Masih observed the matter was in the policy domain and courts should be slow in interfering in matters of academia.

The petition, filed by 18 Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) aspirants who had passed their Class 12 exams in 2023, said though they were eligible to appear for a final attempt in the Joint Entrance Examination (JEE)-Mains in 2025, they were rendered ineligible to appear in the JEE-Advanced scheduled on May 18.

The plea claimed the petitioners were aggrieved by the "abrupt and arbitrary policy reversal" regarding the eligibility criteria for JEE-Advanced 2025 by the joint admission board (JAB), which initially increased the permissible attempts from two to three on November 5, 2024, only to rescind it on November 18 last year.

The JAB conducts the JEE-Advanced.

On Monday, the bench questioned solicitor general Tushar Mehta why three attempts were allowed in JEE-Mains when it was restricted to two for JEE-Advanced.

"Why don't you restrict it to two even for mains?" the bench asked.

It added, "It is better that now you bring two for both." Mehta referred to a January 10 order passed by the apex court on a separate petition in which it noted that JAB issued a press release on November 5 last year which said students who appeared for the Class 12 examination in the years 2023, 2024 and 2025 would be eligible to appear for the JEE-Advanced.

The top court then noted that on November 18, 2024, another press release was issued restricting the eligibility only to two academic years -- 2024 and 2025.

Mehta said the same November 18, 2014 press release, which was challenged in the earlier petition, was being questioned in this plea.

He said on January 10, he had argued before the apex court that the decision notified in the November 18 last year press release was taken in the larger interest of the students as they could not concentrate on their studies and spent their time in preparing for JEE-Advanced in the hope of getting into the IITs.

Senior advocate Shadan Farasat, appearing for the 18 petitioners, highlighted the dichotomy between the JEE-Mains and JEE-Advanced while referring to the number of attempts for participating in the exams.

On March 27, the top court sought responses from the Centre, JAB and others on the plea seeking their responses.

"The lack of uniformity in number of attempts in JEE-Mains and Advanced deprives the petitioners of equal opportunity to secure admission in IIT compared to students who have passed XII in 2024 and 2025," the plea, filed through advocate Mrinmoi Chatterjee, said.

Admissions in the IITs, the plea said, was secured through a two-step entrance examination -- JEE-Mains followed by JEE-Advanced -- and JEE-Mains is held in two sessions in a year.

In its January 10 order passed on a separate petition, the apex court had said such students, who had withdrawn from their courses and dropped out between November 5, 2024 to November 18, 2024, would be permitted to register for JEE-Advanced.