Orissa High Court

Cuttack, Sept. 12: Orissa High Court today refused to allow intervention petitions filed in connection with a writ appeal of the Orissa Private Engineering College Association (Opeca). The court, however, said there was no restriction for writ appeals.

The Opeca had filed the writ appeal challenging the order passed by the single-judge bench of Justice S.C. Parija on August 19 approving the Orissa Joint Entrance Examination (OJEE) Committee’s decision to introduce eligibility criteria for students, who had passed Plus Two examination, to take admission in degree courses in engineering.

Four intervention petitions were filed by more than 50 candidates who had qualified in the OJEE exam – 2011 but were disqualified to take admission because of imposition of eligibility criteria by the OJEE committee.

The court, while hearing the Opeca writ appeal, said the intervention petitions were not maintainable.

“The division bench of Chief Justice V. Gopala Gowda and Justice B.N. Mohapatra, however, gave the candidates who had filed intervention petitions the liberty to file independent writ appeals,” Opeca counsel Devi Prasad Dash told The Telegraph.

“If the independent writ appeals are filed by them, they will be taken up along with the Opeca’s writ appeal for analogous hearing on Thursday,” Dash said.

The Opeca has sought relief for those students who had qualified in the JEE examination after being able to appear in the test because of the interim stay order by the high court, but were disqualified to take admission because of subsequent imposition of the eligibility criteria.

Direction for non-imposition of eligibility criteria for this year has also been sought.

Initially, the OJEE-2011, on the basis of an AICTE stipulation, had allowed students who had obtained 50 per cent marks (general) and 45 per cent marks (scheduled caste and scheduled tribe).

The Opeca had challenged it in the high court. Acting on it, the high court had issued an interim stay order on the eligibility criteria on March 23.

Subsequently, the AICTE had reduced the eligible mark from 50 per cent for general students and 45 per cent for scheduled caste and scheduled tribe students to 45 per cent and 40 per cent respectively.

Giving its verdict on the Opeca’s petition, Justice Parija had held that the “OJEE committee cannot be faulted” and ruled that “the eligibility criteria fixed by the AICTE is realistic”.

Justice Parija had further directed the OJEE committee to adopt the “AICTE’s revised norm for admissions”.