Students queue up for submitting admission forms at Ramadevi Women’s College in Bhubaneswar. Telegraph picture

Cuttack, July 5: Orissa High Court has ruled that online form fill-up for admissions into Plus Two and Plus Three colleges in the state cannot be made mandatory.

The court today said e-admission ought to be made “optional” and online and manual form fill-up should be done simultaneously.

A two-judge bench of Justice V. Gopala Gowda and Justice S.K. Mishra said online applications and those filled manually “should be considered on merit together”.

The verdict comes on a PIL that had challenged compulsory e-admission, introduced by the state government for admission into Plus Two and Plus Three colleges across the state for 2012-13. Joint secretary of the All India Save Education Committee (Odisha chapter) Biswabasu Das filed the petition.

“The judgment assumes significance, as under the existing practice, applications submitted in manual mode were being considered after those filled under the e-admission process irrespective of merit,” petitioner counsel Pinaki Mohapatra told The Telegraph.

In 2009, the state government introduced the online system of admission for 60 Plus Two colleges. It was subsequently extended to all junior and degree colleges across the state. For the current academic session, too, the government had decided to conduct e-admission in all 1,315 junior and 661 degree colleges, making online form fill-up compulsory.

But, the court endorsed the petitioner’s contention that many underprivileged students, who had no access to Internet facilities, would be irreparably prejudiced.

The department of higher education has made online application forms for admission to Plus Three available on its website www.dheorissa.in from June 1.

On June 4, the high court’s vacation bench consisting of Justice Sanju Panda and Justice B.K. Mishra had issued an interim order, saying that the students could also apply manually.

Consequently, the department of higher education had clarified that the students could also submit their common application forms at degree colleges. After submitting the applications, the students were also supposed to go to the nearest resource centre of the Student Academic Management System for depositing it with requisite documents and fees for options.