Indore/bhopal: A two-judge bench of the Supreme Court presided by Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud and Justice Vikram Nathon Tuesday extended the deadline for admission to technical, management, pharmacy, and other professional courses till November 30.
The order came on a petition filed by Association of Technical and Professional Institutes (ATPI), which had approached the apex court seeking an extension in the last date of admissions from October 31 to November 30.
The ATPI sought extension in the deadline claiming that 65,000 seats in various engineering, management, technical, pharmacy and other professional institutes across the state were lying vacant.
The ATPI was represented through advocate Siddharth R Gupta assisted by Mrigank Prabhakar, whilst the state of MP was represented through AAG Saurabh Mishra.
The process for admission to around 75,000 seats of various engineering, technical, management, and pharmacy colleges in the state of Madhya Pradesh is convened and coordinated by the Directorate of Technical Education (DTE), MP.
The admission process is carried out of the merit list prepared out of the JEE-mains examination, which got delayed this year and the results came out in second week of August.
The ATPI approached the Supreme Court pleading that the whole counselling process in Madhya Pradesh was inordinately delayed, owing to which a large number of students left for other states and thus the seats were not having takers.
The ATPI further pleaded that the counselling for admission to NITs and IITs on the basis of the JEE-mains merit list also continued till November 15, owing to which the students were involved in the said counselling process and did not take much interest in the state counselling process of MP.
Gupta argued before the Court that if seats in such a large number remain vacant, then it is not only the institution's loss, but also a national loss as the seats would be left vacant for a full four years, while the colleges have to maintain the entire infrastructure.
After listening to all parties, the Supreme Court extended the deadline to November 30 as the last chance. Previously, the Supreme Court had extended the deadline by 2 weeks for the States of Kerala, Karnataka, and Tamil Nadu, and now that relief has been extended to Madhya Pradesh also.
