Bhubaneswar, Feb. 19: The counselling process for architecture aspirants, who appeared for the Odisha Joint Entrance Examination (OJEE) last year, has been stalled temporarily following an order of the Orissa High Court. Admissions to the Bachelor of Architecture (BArch) course were scheduled to take place today.

The court passed the stay order after the Council of Architecture (CoA) filed a petition last week regarding the eligibility criteria for admissions. As it is, the counselling for the candidates, which was initially supposed to be held last July, has been delayed constantly over the last eight months as a result of this dispute regarding eligibility.

After the legal issues were sorted out, the OJEE committee fixed February 19 as the counselling date for the BArch batch of 2011-12. However, the stay order has left the students groping in the dark.

A notice issued to the students on the OJEE website reads: “Pursuant to the interim order of Hon’ble High Court of Orissa dated 15th February, 2012… the counselling for Bachelor of Architecture (BArch) which was scheduled to be held on February 19, 2012 is stayed until further order.”

While the court has put a stay on admission of candidates, who qualified the OJEE last year, to the College of Engineering and Technology (CET), Bhubaneswar, this time, admissions to the Piloo Mody College of Architecture, Cuttack, the only private college in the state offering BTech course, has also been stopped.

At present, 220 seats are available under OJEE for admissions to BArch courses. Of this, 40 seats are in CET and the remaining seats are at Piloo Mody.

“We would still have the option for BArch in OJEE-2012 scheduled for May 6 but it is difficult to say if the legal issues would be sorted out in time or not,” said OJEE committee vice-chairman Sitaram Mahapatra.

Last year, the architecture counselling was brought to a halt after the authorities of Piloo Mody filed a petition regarding the eligibility criteria for counselling of BArch.

Their contention was that the CoA had fixed the National Aptitude Test in Architecture (Nata) scores as minimum qualification. However, according to the All India Council of Technical Education (AICTE) norms, 40 per cent of Nata score would be considered but admission is to be done on the basis of OJEE rank.

“We had appealed for a leave of court since the past few months and it had been approved last week. However, the court has again put a stay,” said Mohapatra. Sources said the OJEE authorities are planning to move the Supreme Court for a final decision.

The indefinite delay has resulted in frustration among students. “We appeared for the OJEE last May and have been waiting for admissions ever since. The counselling dates are being continuously postponed. We have already lost almost seven months of studies because of this tussle between the government and the college authorities,” said an architecture aspirant.