'Petitioner Not Qualified, Fabricated Admit Card': JEE Responds To Plea Alleging Lack Of Arrangements At Exam Centre Before Kerala HC

The Chairman of the Joint Admission Board of JEE (Advanced) 2021 and other respondents have filed a statement before the Kerala High Court in a plea where a candidate sought another attempt on the premise that no arrangements were made at his allotted test centre. 

Justice P.B. Suresh Kumar had earlier admitted the plea, and the matter will be taken up again tomorrow. 

In the plea filed through Advocate K. Shaj, it was contended that in one of the JEE examination centres, no arrangements were made by the concerned authorities and that the candidate was thereby prevented from appearing in the examination.

The statement filed through Central Government Counsel Daya Sindhu Shreehari submitted that the petition was not maintainable either on facts or law. Advocate Arjun Mitra will appear for JEE and Advocate Anand Kalyanakrishnan will appear for the respondents before the Court.

The petitioner's case was that he had qualified JEE(Mains), was issued an admit card for JEE(Advanced) which he downloaded and printed, went to the examination centre mentioned in the admit card, only to found that no arrangements were made for conducting the examination at that centre.

The respondents, however, denied the entire narration of the petitioner. 

To justify that the candidate was not entitled to the reliefs sought for in the plea, the respondents initially argued that the admit card produced by the petitioner was a manipulated document.

They assert that the petitioner was not issued an admit card at all in the first place since he had not qualified for the JEE (Advanced) 2021. Apparently, he had not managed to get in the top 2,50,000 students in JEE (Mains), therefore the admit card that he produced was not issued by the respondents. 

"...the admit card relied on by the Petitioner appears to be a manipulated document and the manipulations are such as would be easily evident to the naked eye," the statement reads.

To substantiate this, it was pointed out that the roll number printed on the petitioner's admit card belonged to another candidate. Other details were also furnished to prove that there were distinct differences between the admit card produced by the petitioner and the ones issued by the respondents. 

It was further submitted that the petitioner was not found in the list of qualified candidates given to JEE (Advanced) 2021 by the National Testing Agency. 

Another argument raised in the statement was that that there were discrepancies in his JEE (Mains) scorecard and QR code sent to JEE Chairman.

This QR code when scanned displays the actual admit card available on the portal.

It was argued that the marks obtained by the petitioner were different on the scorecard and the QR code, which clearly indicate that the candidate had not submitted his correct JEE (Mains) scorecard to the respondents. 

A perusal of the petitioner's actual scorecard allegedly disclosed that he had not fulfilled the very first criterion to appear for JEE (Advanced) since he had not scored the minimum qualifying cut off mark. 

Accordingly, the statement lays down that the writ petition is bereft of merits and thereby liable to be dismissed with costs. 

Case Title: Navaneeth P Krishna v. Union of India & Ors.