On January 10, the Bombay High Court is set to hear a petition asking for the postponement of the JEE Main 2023 exam.

The Bombay High Court will now consider the plea requesting the postponement of the Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) Main 2023 and the removal of the 75 percent Eligibility Criteria on January 10, 2023. The court has given the petitioner time to submit the JEE Main 2023 brochure. A bench with acting chief justice S V Gangpurwala and J Sandeep V Marne will evaluate the petition. During the hearing, the petitioner said, “The only challenge is that the registration deadline is coming up. I will submit tomorrow, my lords may keep it for Monday.” However, the court refused and said, “You should have included it with the petition. We will discuss this on January 10.”

Anubha Srivastava Sahai, a child rights activist, presented a petition to the court. In the petition, she expressed that the dates for JEE Mains 2023 were conflicting with board exams 2023 and that the reintroduction of the 75% eligibility criteria would impact numerous students. Rui Rodriguez, representing the National Testing Agency (NTA), stated that the criteria is based on the marks obtained in Class 12 exams.

Rodriguez noted that the Class 12 marks are taken into account for admittance, not for being eligible for the JEE Main 2023 exam. In response, the petitioner’s lawyer argued that there’s no point in taking the entrance exam if the applicant does not hold the required score.

In response to the academic disruption caused by the COVID-19 crisis, the National Testing Agency (NTA) decided to waive the JEE Main 75% criteria as a one-time measure last year. The petition noted that the CBSE, ICSE and other state board pre-board exams will be taking place in January, creating a conflict with JEE Main 2023, which will likely lead to fewer students signing up for the January 2023 session.

The plea pointed out that in the past the NTA usually gave a two to three month heads up before the IIT JEE Main 2023 exam. However, with such limited time to prepare, the announcement of the exam date so close to the exam date itself is not practical.