HC orders govt to conduct special JEE this year too

Cuttack: Like in the past four years, the Orissa High Court today ordered the state government to conduct a special Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) this year also to fill up the B Tech seats lying vacant in several private engineering colleges of Odisha.

Barring 2013, the same process is being repeated since 2011. Anticipating such an order, the government later in the day announced July 31 as the date for the examination and decided to complete the final seat allotment by August 10.

The second JEE to fill up the remaining seats in MCA and MBA lying vacant in several colleges, would also be held on the same day.

A Division Bench of the High Court gave the order after adjudicating over a petition filed by the OPECA (Odisha Private Engineering College Association).

The petition had contested the intake of B Tech students in Odisha engineering colleges on the basis of a single All India JEE by violating a provision of Odisha Professional Education Act.

The petition said before merging with the AIJEE, the state Act was not amended. Further the state Act also has a provision to have a second JEE to fill up the vacant seats if any, OPECA president Binod Das said adding more than 32,000 seats were now lying vacant of the 45,000 seats in 93 engineering colleges of the state after the completion of admissions on the basis of AIJEE.