Cuttack, Oct. 9: Candidates who qualified in the Orissa Joint Entrance Examination (OJEE) - 2011 but were disqualified to take admission in degree courses in engineering due to imposition of eligibility criteria apparently have a light at the end of the tunnel with Orissa High Court leaving it for the state government to take an “appropriate decision”.

The candidates had not fulfilled the eligibility criteria, but were permitted to take the OJEE by an interim order passed by the high court. But they got “higher ranking in the entrance examination than the candidates who have secured the cut-off marks in Plus II science examination”.

“We hope the state government will now take a favourable decision taking into consideration the high court verdict on the writ appeals against an earlier order,” said Orissa Private Engineering College Association (Opeca) secretary Binod Kumar Dash.

Opeca, Institute of Professional Studies & Research and 40 candidates who qualified in the OJEE exam – 2011 but were disqualified to take admission due to imposition of eligibility criteria filed separate writ appeals against the judgment of a single judge bench that endorsed it.

But a division bench of chief justice V. Gopala Gowda and justice B.N. Mohapatra dismissed the writ appeals saying, “We do not find any error in the judgment on which ground alone this court can interfere with the order.”

“The cut-off marks are insisted upon to attain excellence in the technical course. The grounds urged in the appeal are based on the ad hoc regulation. Those regulations have been replaced by the 2010 regulation, which was further modified on July 4, 2011. Therefore, the Opeca and similar other institutions who are before this court cannot have any contention against the judgment. All the grounds urged are untenable grounds and cannot be accepted,” the high court observed.

The ruling was passed on September 26. “The division bench in its order, a copy of which was only available on Friday, however, hoped that the state government would take appropriate decision to accommodate the students who have been permitted to take the entrance examination although they have not secured the cut-off marks in the qualifying examination but have secured higher ranking,” Opeca counsel Devi Prasad Dash told The Telegraph today.