HC seeks board’s reply on IIT aspirant’s plea as she is denied admission for falling short of minimum 65% aggregate

Kolhapur: The Kolhapur bench of the Bombay high court has directed state govt and Maharashtra State Board authorities to file an affidavit-in-reply by the first week of Aug on a petition filed by a 17-year-old JEE Main and JEE Advanced-qualified student whose IIT preparatory course seat was cancelled over a marginal shortfall in Class XII marks.Divya Baramate, a Kolhapur-based student, approached the court, through her father, after the Joint Seat Allocation Authority (JoSAA) rejected her Round-I seat allocation, stating that she did not meet the minimum 65% aggregate applicable to Scheduled Caste candidates.The dispute centres on the Maharashtra board’s practice of combining marks of computer science papers I and II on the marksheet. Divya scored 71 marks in paper I and 77 in paper II, but the board reflected the score as a combined 148 out of 200.

As a result, her aggregate stands at 64.6%, below the eligibility threshold. The petition argues that if the two papers are shown separately and the “best of five” formula is applied, her percentage rises to 65.2%, making her eligible.The petition seeks a direction to the board to issue a revised marksheet showing separate marks for both computer science papers.According to the plea, the issue affects Maharashtra board students differently from their CBSE counterparts, where elective subjects are reflected as individual 100-mark papers.

Under Maharashtra board rules, students appear for two separate 100-mark papers in elective subjects, but the marks are combined on the final marksheet.Advocate Ahilya Tanaji Nalawade mentioned the matter as urgent before a division bench of Justices Milind N Jadhav and Nandesh S Deshpande, which sought a response from the authorities.“My daughter qualified JEE Mains by 83 percentile and JEE Advanced with 45 marks.

The cutoff for IITs closed for SC category at 46 marks. The JoSAA has a system in which those who have missed the cutoff by a whisker are admitted in IITs’ Preparatory Course and, if seats get vacant, those selected in the Preparatory Course are preferred for admission,” said Vinod Baramate, the petitioner’s father.“My daughter ranked 421 in the list of shortlisted candidates. However, JoSAA during verification cancelled the allocation stating my daughter does not fulfil the 65% board exam criteria. We approached the Kolhapur division of the board for a revised marksheet, but did not get a reply. Therefore, we decided to approach the HC,he said.Nalawade said the student had exhausted administrative remedies before moving court. “The petitioner had approached the board division but yielded no response. JoSAA cooperated by informing the requirements for eligibility. Now they have the last round for which the document showing both papers of computer science separately is needed till July 15. We tried to press for an early reply in the court,” she said.“Even if we miss this deadline, we will pursue the matter and the petitioner may get admission subject to the HC’s direction even after the process is completed,” Nalawade added.The petition contends that clubbing marks of two elective papers is discriminatory as students are required to clear both papers and practical examinations separately despite having distinct syllabi. Nalawade said a favourable ruling could benefit other students who may have lost opportunities in technical and medical admissions due to the board’s practice of combining marks for elective subjects.