IIT Admission CBSE Marks Relaxation: Roorkee Offers Relief Amid Grade Dispute

IIT-Roorkee has permitted students currently falling short of the mandatory Class 12 percentage to join the JoSAA counselling process as investigations into CBSE marking discrepancies intensify.

For thousands of engineering aspirants, the road to an undergraduate seat at the Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT) has been fraught with uncertainty this year. As concerns mount over potential discrepancies in the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) on-screen marking system, IIT-Roorkee—the institute spearheading this year’s JEE (Advanced) process—has stepped in to provide a necessary buffer for affected students.

On Friday, the institute announced that candidates who currently do not meet the standard eligibility criteria for Class 12 marks are still permitted to participate in the ongoing Joint Seat Allocation Authority (JoSAA) counselling. Under normal circumstances, admission requires a minimum of 75% for General, OBC-NCL, and GEN-EWS categories, or 65% for SC/ST and PwD candidates. IIT-Roorkee has clarified that these students may fill in their preferred choices now, with seat allocation proceeding according to their JEE rank.

Addressing the Eligibility Gap

The decision comes as a direct response to a mounting controversy involving the CBSE. Numerous students have reported that scanned copies of their answer sheets display handwriting that does not match their own, sparking fears of widespread errors in the board’s digital evaluation process. As these students await potential rectifications, their academic futures have remained in limbo, with the critical eligibility threshold for IIT admission hanging in the balance.

To bridge this gap, the institute has established a strict timeline for compliance. While candidates are allowed to participate in the seat allocation process without the required marks today, they must submit a revised scorecard verifying that they have achieved the 75% or 65% threshold by July 15. The institute has directed students to email their updated documents to orgjee@iitr.ac.in.

Conditional Admission Pathways

The relief provided by the institute is contingent upon the timely arrival of these updated results. According to the official communication, once the revised scorecard is received, admission will be finalized for whichever seat was allocated to the student at the conclusion of the fourth round of counselling.

The gravity of the situation has prompted intervention at the highest levels of government. Earlier this week, the Cabinet Secretariat confirmed the formation of a one-member committee specifically tasked with investigating the procurement and operational integrity of the OSM system utilized by the CBSE. For the affected students, the move by IIT-Roorkee offers a vital window of opportunity, ensuring that technical delays or evaluation disputes do not permanently derail their engineering aspirations.