Delhi High Court Grants Relief To Open School Students Left Out Of JEE Mains Counselling

The Delhi High Court has granted relief to various students who got registered with National Institute of Open Schooling (NIOS) and were left out of JEE-Mains 2025 counselling process as their result for class XII examination was not declared.

Justice Vikas Mahajan observed 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.

“Therefore, 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. In any case, the counselling body can consider factoring in the aspect of delay in declaration of result as has been done by JoSSA, if informed by the Board(s) well in time,” the Court said.

Noting that the last date for registration was June 02, the Court passed interim directions.

It directed NIOS to expedite the declaration of result of Class-XII, preferably on or before June 17, so that at least two days buffer is available to the petitioner students and other similarly situated candidates, for registration of counselling with Joint Admission Council (JAC) on a single day window available on June 19.

“Respondent/JAC shall permit the petitioners to register themselves for counselling physically on 02.06.2025, with a condition that seat allotment will be made by JAC to the petitioners only if they are able to furnish the result of class XII before the declaration of seat allotment result of First Round,” it added.

Further, the Court said that if class XII result is not declared by NIOS before the opening of single day window on June 19, JAC shall then again permit the petitioner students to register themselves on a single day window available June 19 without insisting upon the class-XII result, with a condition that seat allotment will be made to the petitioners only if they are able to furnish the result of class XII before the declaration of seat allotment result of round two.

“Respondent/JAC is also directed to notify other candidates similarly placed as petitioners about this order and allow them to register themselves for the counselling on a single day window available on 19.06.2025 and extend them the same benefit…,” it said.

The Court clarified that the order was passed in the peculiar facts and circumstances of the case and shall not be treated as precedent and the directions will not create any special equities in favour of the petitioner students.

The Court was dealing with pleas filed by five students who successfully cleared JEE (Mains)-2025 conducted by National Testing Agency (NTA).

As their result was awaited, it was their case that having secured qualifying percentile in the JEE (Mains), they were entitled to participate in the counselling which is to be conducted by the Joint Seat Allocation Authority and JAC.

The matter will now be heard on July 07.

Counsel for Petitioner Akshita Shehrawat: Mr. Gaurav Deshraj and Mr. Naveen Kumar, Advs

Counsel for Petitioner Om Upadhyay and Ors: Mr. Ankit Singh Sinsinwar, Mr. Ravi Kumar, Mr. Dhananjay Kumar and Ms. Neha Yadav, Advs

Counsel for Petitioner Aryan Verma: Mr. Samar K., Mr. Anmol Agarwal, Mr. P. Sharma, Mr. Kushal Gupta, Mr. Abhishek Singh, Ms. Kavita Vinayak and Mr. Gaurav Vashisht, Advs

Counsel for Respondents: Mr. S. Rajappa, Mr. R. Gowrishankar and Ms. G. Dhivyasri, Advs. for R- 1/NIOS; Mr. Soumava Karmakar and Ms. Jyoti Bajaj, Adv. for UOI; Ms. Avnish Ahlawat, SC for DTU with Mr. NK Singh, Ms. Aliza Alam, Mr. Mohnish and Mr. Amitoj, Advs. for R-3; Mr. Arjun Mitra, Adv. for R-2 & R-5

Title: AKSHITA SEHRAWAT (MINOR) REPRESENT BY HER FATHER SH. DEEPAK KUMAR v. DELHI TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY (DTU) & ORS and other connected matters

Citation: 2025 LiveLaw (Del) 654

Click here to read order