Guwahati, Aug. 13: Gauhati High Court has detected irregularities in the results of the joint medical and engineering entrance test conducted by the Assam higher and technical education department.

Though the court reserved its ruling till the next hearing — slated for August 20 — the detection of anomalies during scrutiny of answer scripts by the court was a moral victory for the candidates who had filed the writ petitions.

The single-judge bench of Justice P.G. Agarwal today said three sets of handwriting were detected in one of the answer scripts under scrutiny, while the aggregate marks of another candidate were found to be incorrect.

The court scanned the answer scripts when as many as 31 candidates filed writ petitions, contending that there were anomalies in the joint admission test.

It sought the answer script of the son of the controller of examinations (higher and technical education) for scrutiny during the next hearing in view of advocate K.N. Choudhury’s claim that he did not deserve to get a seat.

The court decided to retain the answer scripts of the 31 petitioners till August 20. The hearing was postponed because all the petitioners were not present in court today.

On August 7, the high court had directed the state government not to fill up 11 seats in medical and engineering colleges till such time it gave its ruling on the petitions.

The court also perused the report of the inquiry conducted by the joint secretary (education), S.K. Nath. The report stated that of the 55 complaints received, 29 did not have any merit. However, the inquiry report did admit that there could be “minor variation of marks, ranging from half to six, in the re-evaluation process”.

The court had said that barring the 11 seats, the state government could go ahead with admissions. However, it added a rider: all admissions will be subject to the ruling on the petitions.

There was pandemonium in the Assembly over the alleged anomalies in the results of the joint admission test. The uproar intensified when the Tarun Gogoi government turned down the Opposition’s demand for a probe by a House committee.

The Asom Gana Parishad and BJP members had staged a noisy walkout on August 5 as education minister Pankaj Bora rejected their demand for a House committee probe and claimed that an inquiry conducted earlier did not establish any anomaly in the merit list or allegations of corruption in the selection process.

The final merit list of candidates selected for admission into medical and engineering colleges by the directorate of technical education on July 9 was modified on July 10, and a fresh list was published.

This led to suspicion in the minds of candidates and parents that the selection process was not fair.