The Delhi high court on Friday warned IITs and NITs from making themselves a "laughing stock" in the eyes of the world if, despite being at the cutting edge of technology and innovation, they failed to find a solution to the perennial problem of seats left vacant in IITs every academic year.
Giving its ruling on a PIL by IIT professor Rajeev Kumar concerning alleged discrepancies, irregularities and arbitrariness in Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) conducted by the Indian Institutes of Technology, the court said, "We wonder whether it is the proverbial situation of it being darkest beneath the lamp."
The court found it "intriguing" to see IITs and NITs, which provide consultancy to everyone on complex technical matters, unable to synchronise admissions. "The said institutions themselves and their students are best equipped in today's time of technology, when software programmes developed by IITians are serving nearly every human need, to find a solution to the malady, which admittedly exists and cure whereof has eluded all," the two-judge bench of Chief Justice J Rohini and Justice Rajiv Sahai Endlaw said.
Noting that it doesn't need years to develop a programme to synchronise admissions, the court said that IITs and NITs cannot afford any red-tapism. "They cannot afford any red-tapism in this regard and which, if it becomes known to the world at large, may make them a laughing stock in the eyes of their clients," the court observed.
The PIL stated that there were hundreds of seats remaining vacant in IITs each year, that this had a cascading effect year after year, and that till 2004, some of these vacant seats were being filled up by wards of the employees and faculty members of IITs who were "otherwise not eligible for admission".
In its ruling, the court directed the ministry of human resource development to ensure common counselling for admissions to NITs and IITs from academic year 2015-16. And while it said that "filling up of vacant seats cannot be at the cost of maintaining standards of education and merit in IITs", it has sought to know from the HRD ministry by November 30, whether lateral entry into IITs in second year from NITs and other engineering colleges was possible. Two, whether reserved category seats in IITs, if they remained unfilled, can be transferred to general category.
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