NEW DELHI| 3RD JUNE 2025
The Delhi High Court has emphasized the urgent need for effective coordination between school examination boards and higher education admission authorities, including entrance test and counselling bodies. This directive comes in response to petitions filed by students who cleared JEE (Mains) 2025 but were barred from registering for counselling due to delayed Class XII results from the National Institute of Open Schooling (NIOS).
BACKGROUND OF THE CASE
The petitioners, including Akshita Sehrawat (Minor) Represented by Her Father Sh. Deepak Kumar & Ors. v. Delhi Technical University (DTU) & Ors., had successfully cleared the JEE (Mains) and were eligible for the counselling process. However, they were unable to register before the June 2, 2025 deadline due to the non-declaration of their Class XII results by NIOS.
DELHI HIGH COURT OBSERVATIONS
A Bench led by Justice Vikas Mahajan made strong observations regarding the issue, stating:
“It needs to be underlined that there has to be proper coordination between the counselling bodies and all the Boards at the national and state level, conducting class XII exams… An important aspect which cannot be overlooked is that students put hard labour for two to four years, or may be more, while preparing for JEE (Mains) and they should not get ousted from consideration in the counselling despite having attained good percentile and rank only on the ground that result of class XII has not been timely declared by the concerned education Board conducting such qualifying exam of class XII.”
The Court emphasized that students should not be penalized for delays attributable to the examination boards, especially when they have performed well in competitive exams like JEE (Mains).
COURT DIRECTIONS TO NIOS AND JAC
To safeguard the interests of the affected students, the Court issued the following directions:
NIOS must release Class XII results by June 17, 2025.
A two-day buffer period is granted before counselling begins on June 19, 2025.
The Joint Admission Council (JAC), responsible for engineering and architecture counselling in leading Delhi government-run institutions, must allow registration from eligible students even if their board results are still pending.
JAC is instructed to open a special one-day window on June 19, 2025, for registration by such students.
LEGAL REPRESENTATION
Petitioners’ Advocates:
Gaurav Deshraj, Naveen Kumar, Ankit Singh Sinsinwar, Ravi Kumar, Dhananjay Kumar, Neha Yadav, Samar K, Anmol Agarwal, P Sharma, Kushal Gupta, Abhishek Singh, Kavita Vinayak, Gaurav Vashisht
Respondents’ Advocates:
Soumava Karmakar, Jyoti Bajaj, S Rajappa R Gowrishankar, G Dhivyasri, Pankhuri Shrivastava, Aditya Kumar, Avnish Ahlawat, NK Singh, Aliza Alam, Mohnish, Amitoj, Arjun Mitra
NEXT HEARING DATE
The matter is scheduled for the next hearing on July 7, 2025.
