The JEE board has uploaded the medical merit list of the first 4,000 candidates on its website with their scores to prove tiebreaker rules had been followed while preparing the list.

The board uploaded the list last Friday following a prod from Calcutta High Court, which had on September 2 asked the board to post the scores of the first 4,000 candidates to allay their fears that they hadn't been awarded marks according to their performance.

The court had set a 10-day deadline.

On August 25, the board had uploaded a list of more than 12,000 candidates on its website but without their names or scores. Only their roll numbers were there on the list.

A notification says tiebreaker rules mentioned in this year's JEE brochure have been followed.

The issue of following these rules had been raised in the high court.

Ever since the board introduced objective questions in 2012, the chances of candidates ending up with same scores have increased.

The brochure had mentioned 11 rules, regarding negative and positive marking.

If the scores still remain tied, the date of birth of candidates will be considered: older candidates will get preference, the brochure said.

The lawyer representing Samir Das, who moved the public interest litigation, had sought to know when the board applied the date of birth clause to rank candidates.

"We have mentioned the date of birth of candidates to ensure that transparency is maintained," Sajal Dasgupta, the board chairman, said.

Former board chairman Bhasker Gupta said it would be better, for the sake of transparency, to upload the computer-evaluated OMR answer scripts of the first 4,000 candidates.

This would allow a candidate to find out if the computer has captured his/her answers without any glitch, Gupta said.

Asked how a computer could err, he said the machine wouldn't scan an answer if a candidate doesn't darken the bubble properly.

"A candidate might partially darken a bubble under time constraint. In that case, the machine will not read the answer," he said. "Besides, while scanning tens of thousands of answer scripts, the machine's reading capacity could go down. In the past we had a system to address this problem."

Till last year, the board posted answers and OMR sheets of candidates along with the evaluated ones while seeking their feedback on model answers and computer-evaluated OMR answer scripts.

This allowed candidates to verify if computers had correctly marked them.

The results used to be published after factoring in the feedback of candidates.

Asked why the board didn't publish the computer-evaluated OMR answer scripts, Dasgupta said: "The court did not give any direction on this."