Cuttack, Aug. 11: The fate of thousands of students who had qualified to take admission in degree courses of engineering hangs in balance with the Orissa High Court keeping its judgment reserved on the legality of eligibility criteria introduced by the Orissa Joint Entrance Examination (OJEE).

Initially, the OJEE-2011 had allowed students who passed the Plus II science examination with physics and mathematics along with either chemistry, biotechnology or biology with 50 per cent marks for general and 45 per cent marks for SC and ST categories.

Orissa Private Engineering College Association (OPECA) challenged it in the high court. Acting on it, the high court issued an interim stay order on the eligibility criteria on March 23.

The single-judge bench of Justice S.C. Parija had closed hearing on the case on Tuesday and reserved his verdict.

The dispute at close of hearing had narrowed down to the question as to whether the eligibility criteria were necessary. If so, what would be the fate of a large number of students who did not meet the eligibility criteria but had qualified in the entrance examination.

“That thousands of students who had qualified in JEE are still apprehensive about the final eligibility criteria is implicit from the fact that 29,000 had registered their names, but 26,000 had attended mock-counselling. Their number had gone down to 21,000 at the time of locking their choices,” OPECA secretary Binod Dash told The Telegraph.

The total approved intake capacity of all engineering colleges in Orissa is 38,000.

OPECA had contended in court that percentage of marks secured by the students in their respective examinations conducted by various autonomous colleges set up in the state “has no reasonable nexus to determine their individual standards/merits and only through a common entrance examination their merit can be adjudged”.

There was no minimum qualifying marks last year, but a huge number of seats had remained vacant in most of its member institutions. “The eligibility criteria would cause the vacancies of substantial number of approved seats in the member colleges and create financial crisis in running such unaided professional colleges,” OPECA claimed.

The OJEE committee had argued before the court that the eligibility criterion was introduced after the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) imposed the stipulation in its Approval Process Hand Book 2011-2012 with regard to changing the eligibility criteria for students who had passed the Plus II examination.

Moreover, the AICTE had reduced the eligible mark from 50 per cent marks for general and 45 per cent marks for SC and ST students to 45 per cent and 40 per cent respectively.

OPECA, on the other hand, had alleged that OJEE had been adopting AICTE guidelines as per its whims. While it followed AICTE norms in some cases, it gave them a go by in other cases.

The OJEE committee, which was scheduled to publish the first round (provisional) allotment for the engineering stream on August 5, has not been able to go ahead with it as the matter related to eligibility criteria is still sub-judice in the high court. OJEE committee vice-chairman Sitaram Mohapatra had announced: “Admission will be done as per the verdict of the high court.”