A student of a private engineering college who was asked to leave the institution on being found to be underage can resume his studies, thanks to the initiative of the Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) board’s lawyer.

Subrata Mukhopadhyay, counsel for the board, said his client was at fault for allowing Soutik Kumar Sinha to take the exam and that he had persuaded the authorities to relax rules for him.

The 16-year-old Hooghly resident, who had ranked 5000 in JEE 2008, was allotted a berth in computer science at St Thomas College, Kidderpore.

A few days after the session started, the college asked Sinha to leave citing a West Bengal University of Technology rule which bars students below 17 years age from taking admission in engineering courses.

Soutik’s father Pradip Kumar Sinha moved the high court against the rule. The case came up for hearing before Justice S.K. Gupta on Friday.

Mukhopadhyay, instead of opposing the petition and arguing in favour of the rule, prayed for time to convince his client to allow the student to continue his studies. The judge granted his plea and fixed the next hearing on September 30.

“The board allowed the student to appear for the JEE though he had mentioned in the application form that he was born on June 30, 1992. He was called for counselling by the Central Selection Committee. My client was at fault. How could I oppose the student’s prayer,” Mukhopadhyay said on Saturday.

“When the matter comes up for hearing on Tuesday, I will inform the judge that my client has agreed to allow the student to continue his studies.”

The board, however, told Mukhopadhyay to plead with the judge to treat the relaxation as a one-off case.

The JEE board had this year abolished the upper age limit for students seeking admission in engineering courses. “I have requested my client to see that there is no lower age limit as well,” said Mukhopadhyay.