Cuttack, July 10: Orissa High Court today directed the Odisha Joint Entrance Examination Committee-2012 to extend the last date of counselling for engineering seats and the consequent choice-locking by students by four days.

Counselling for the engineering seats had begun on June 26 and the choice-locking, which had begun on June 29, was supposed to end on July 12.

There are about 41,000 engineering seats in the 101 technical institutions including 92 private colleges, in the state. The All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) renews the approval of these colleges every year and approves enhanced seats before the beginning of the academic session.

The committee did not include a number of colleges in the counselling list for the 2012-13 academic session because of the lack of approval from AICTE. The council-approved enhanced seats of several colleges had also not been included in the counselling list.

The single-judge bench of Justice Sanju Panda issued the order for extending the counselling process and choice-locking to July 16 after some of these colleges sought high court’s direction to include them in the counselling list because they had got the required no-objection from AICTE.

The court directed the committee to include, by tomorrow, these colleges and the enhanced seats that had not been included in the counselling list on the website.

The court further directed the committee to give the students, who had already undergone the counselling and choice-locking process, another chance to lock their choices at the nodal centres.

Orissa Private Engineering College Association secretary Binod Dash said: “Around 3,500 more seats will now be available for choice-locking in the counselling list of Odisha Joint Entrance Examination Committee-2012. The new list will not only include 13 colleges that were not included on grounds of AICTE approval but also the AICTE-approved enhanced seats in 20 colleges.”