On January 4, the Bombay High Court division bench of Acting Chief Justice SV Gangapurwala and Justice Sandeep V. Marne adjourned a Petition seeking postponement of the JEE Mains 2023 (Session 1) to Tuesday, January 10, 2023, after noting that the petitioner had failed to file the exam brochure on record. PIL also claims that many candidates are from batches that were evaluated based on previous year performance because the board exams were cancelled due to the COVID pandemic. According to the petition, there are students with less than 75% marks who could perform well in JEE Mains, and denying them a fair chance will harm the future of lakhs of bright students.

According to the petition, many other competitive exams are also scheduled for January 2023 and will conflict with JEE Mains. According to the petition, the NDA SSB interview is scheduled for January 23 to 27, 2023, and students taking JEE Mains may be unable to attend.

For the petitioner, advocate Joseph Thate contended that the JEE Mains exam conflicts with many board exams and viva voce. “Usually, they inform 4 months prior to the exam but they have not this time”, he added.

The NTA's Adv. Rui Rodriguez clarified that the 75% mark must be obtained in the board exams, not in the JEE Mains. He went on to say that the class XII results are taken into account when applying for admission to IITs. He stated that there are no eligibility requirements for taking the exam.

When the bench requested the exam brochure, Rodriguez informed the bench that the petition was deficient because the brochure had not been filed. The court ruled that the rules being challenged should have been filed along with the petition. 

Case Title – Anubha Srivastava Sahai v. National Testing Agency and Ors.