Ten days ago, the government set up a committee headed by IIT Kharagpur Director Damodar Acharya to suggest reforms to the admission process for the Indian Institutes of Technology. It is expected the committee will look at ways to incorporate Class XII exam marks in the selection criteria.
This comes after revelations that the process used in the past is flawed.
An RTI application by a professor at IIT Kharagpur filed in 2007 revealed that in 2006, 994 students with low aggregates in maths, physics and chemistry in the Joint Entrance Exami-nation qualified, though around 4,000 others who had higher aggregates than them did not.
For example, a student with 37 in maths, 48 in physics and 69 in chemistry made the cut, while another with 36 in maths, 116 in physics and 127 in chemistry did not. This was because the cutoff mark for maths that year was said to be 37. However, when the cutoff was calculated according to the stated formula, it came out to be 7.
A student challenged the admissions in the Calcutta High Court. Last month, the court said it had no expertise in the matter and declined to interfere. Professor Rajeev Kumar, who had filed the RTI application, said he will challenge the decision in the Supreme Court.
Professor Acharya said the formula for determining cutoffs had already been decided. It is the existing flawed formula.