Cuttack, Aug. 1: Orissa High Court today quashed the Centre’s new guidelines for seat allotment that had restricted options for students qualifying the All-India Engineering Entrance Examination (AIEEE)-2012 and aspiring to make it to National Institute of Technology (NIT) in their home states.

However, the ruling, being prospective in nature, would be applicable to the seats that remained to be filled up, said Rabindra Kumar Dash, counsel for joint secretary of the AIEEE. The order was passed today by a single-judge bench of Justice Sanju Panda on two separate petitions filed by three students and a parent seeking quashing of the guidelines on the ground that it would lessen the prospects of students getting admission to NITs in their home states.

Director of NIT-Rourkela Sunil Kumar Sarangi said he was yet to receive a copy of the court order, but as things stood, all seats had already been allotted. “Only if a vacancy arises, those in the waiting list stand a chance,” he said.

The guidelines, laid down by the Central Counselling Board (CCB)-2012, required students opting for NITs in their home states to take admission in the home state quota only. Earlier, 50 per cent of the seats in these institutes were reserved for the home state students and the remaining filled up on the basis of all India rankings.

The guideline for the AIEEE rank holders said: “The other state quota seats in an institute shall be available only to candidates from other states, home state candidates being forbidden from these seats.”

Therefore, a candidate from Odisha, qualifying in the AIEEE and aspiring to take admission in NIT-Rourkela, would be considered only for 50 per cent of the seats in the institute. Hence, the new norm would have scuttled the chances of a large number of students aspiring for admissions to NIT-Rourkela, the petitioners contended.

Authorities of NIT-Rourkela said there were 810 BTech seats of which 10 per cent to 20 per cent seats were reserved for candidates belonging to SC/ST, physically challenged and other disadvantaged groups.

Justice Panda quashed the new guideline on the ground that it was flawed as notified by the CCB-2012 in a later version of its information brochure on June 15, a day before counselling started for admissions.

“The court asked the AIEEE authorities to henceforth include such guidelines not amid admission process but before its beginning,” one of the petitioner’s counsel Bibaswata Panigrahi said.

Acting on the petitions, the court on July 26 imposed restrictions on the admission process, while instructing the director of NIT-Rourkela, who is also chairman of the CCB, not to fill up the remaining seats.

The CCB constituted by the Union government co-ordinates admissions to undergraduate degree programmes in engineering, technology and architecture in respect of selected institutions, including 30 NITs, one of which is located in Rourkela.

This year’s CCB was constituted, limiting the jurisdiction for legal disputes to Orissa High Court or the Supreme Court. According to official sources, of the 15,485 seats in the 30 NITs, 7,737 are earmarked for home state quota and the remaining 7,748 for all India quota.