Cuttack, Sept. 20: Orissa High Court on Tuesday reserved judgment on petitions challenging an earlier order approving introduction of eligibility criteria for students who had passed the Plus Two examination and sought admission in degree courses in engineering colleges by the Orissa Joint Entrance Examination (OJEE) Committee.

The division bench of Chief Justice V. Gopala Gowda and Justice B.N. Mohapatra reserved judgment after taking up a writ appeal of Orissa Private Engineering College Association (Opeca)’s for analogous hearing along with 35 other petitions.

Candidates, who had qualified in the OJEE exam 2011 but were subsequently barred from taking admission following imposition of eligibility criteria, had filed the petitions.

Direction for non-imposition of eligibility criteria for this year was also sought. Other petitioners had also sought similar relief.

On August 19, the single-judge bench of Justice S.C. Parija had held that the “OJEE Committee cannot be faulted” and ruled that “the eligibility criteria fixed by the AICTE is realistic”. While giving verdict on Opeca’s petition, Justice Parija had further directed the OJEE Committee to adopt “AICTE’s revised norm for admissions”.

Initially, OJEE—2011, on the basis of AICTE stipulation, had allowed admission to 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.

The Opeca had told the court that though there was no minimum marks for entry last year, huge number of seats had remained vacant in most of its member institutions for introduction of such qualifying marks this year.

“The eligibility criteria would cause the vacancies of substantial number of approved seats in the member colleges and create financial crisis in running such un-aided professional colleges,” the Opeca had claimed.

The association had further contended 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 that their merit can be adjudged only through a common entrance examination”.