New JEE got council nod: Kapil Sibal

The Centre on Wednesday rejected criticism of a decision to have a common IIT-JEE examination from next year, stating that it was approved without dissent at an IIT Council meeting, and had the backing of the senates of four of the seven IITs.

The Centre on Wednesday rejected criticism of a decision to have a common IIT-JEE examination from next year, stating that it was approved without dissent at an IIT Council meeting, and had the backing of the senates of four of the seven IITs.

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Even as IIT alumni wrote to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh against the move, HRD Minister Kapil Sibal said, “The council consists of IITs, IIITs and NITs. There was not a single dissent. It was unanimously adopted. Therefore, I went forward.”

According to sources, some ministers even opined that IITs, in the long term, should adopt the same format as other central educational institutions. The states have been asked to convey their decision on the year of joining in the common admission process and the relative weightages to normalised Class XII Board marks, performance in JEE-Main and JEE-Advanced by June 30.

Sibal, however, was non-committal about a demand to make the selection criteria for IITs the same as that for other institutes.