IIT-JEE Counselling

During counselling for the 5,537 seats—in seven Indian Institute of Technologies (IITs), Institute of Technology-Banaras Hindu University (IT-BHU) and Indian School of Mines University (ISMU-Dhanbad)—this year, candidates were not informed about seats which are already ‘closed’. Earlier, counsellors used to inform students about already-filled seats and subsequently courses which are no longer available.JEE officials explained that the new policy has been put into practice since it is not possible to be cent per cent sure about a particular seat being closed due to various reasons.For instance, students opting for architecture and design courses have to pass an aptitude test, held on the last day of the counseling session. In case a student fails the test, he/she will not be eligible for admission to these courses. But this data is not available during the counselling procedure, hence it is not feasible to say if these seats are closed or not.There are more such complications in the admission procedure. According to IIT officials, as per a Supreme Court ruling, certified physical disabilities (PD) candidates can be allotted seats as per their 'birth category’—general, Scheduled Caste or Scheduled Tribe. If a physically disabled candidate belongs to a scheduled caste, he will be admitted under the SC category.Similarly, a high-ranking student belonging to a SC or ST category may seek admission under the general category. That means a seat will be deducted from the general category, not the reserved categories