Bhubaneswar, July 13: The tug-of-war between the state government and the Piloo Mody College of Architecture, Cuttack, the only private institution in the state offering a bachelor’s degree in architecture, has left hundreds of students on tenterhooks.

Four hundred students of two batches in the college have been denied registration numbers and exam results for the past two years because of this ongoing tussle.

The two warring sides have been in disagreement regarding the eligibility for admissions into architecture. While the state government wants students to be admitted following the Odisha Joint Entrance Examination (OJEE) rank as well as the National Aptitude Test in Architecture (Nata) score, the college wants to follow only the Nata score.

The issue remains unsolved since 2009 despite a battery of court cases between the state government and the private college.

The high court had, in February, put a stay on admissions into architecture following a petition filed by the Council of Architecture (CoA) regarding the eligibility criteria for admissions.

Last year, the court had stayed the admissions only for the government-run College of Engineering and Technology (CET), Bhubaneswar but this year, it is applicable for Piloo Mody College too.

These are the only two colleges offering architecture in Odisha with 40 seats in CET and 200 seats in Piloo Mody.

The uncertainty over architecture courses in the state notwithstanding, as many as 10,000 students had applied for the course for the academic year 2012-13. However, the OJEE did not conduct the architecture test for these candidates. Further, the counselling process had not taken place for the 2011-12 batch students either. There were no admissions for the 40 BArch seats at CET, which later admitted students on its own.

“The matter is in the court and therefore, we cannot get on with the counselling,” said secretary of the OJEE committee Priyabrat Sahoo.

The uncertainty over exams, registration numbers and recognition from the state government has led to harassment of hundreds of students and their parents.

“If the confusion was prevailing for so many years, the government bodies should not have called the students for an entrance test at all. They have no right to harass us,” fumed Shivram, a student of Piloo Mody College.

“Whenever we approach the authorities with these problems, the common answer is that the matter is subjudice. But whom do we approach during these trying times? The problems need to be addressed immediately. The court should not delay the matter further and play with our future for we are not at fault at all,” said M. Sahoo, another aspiring architect.