High court asks centre, CCB to file reply on seats allotment in AIEEE

NEW DELHI - The Delhi High Court Friday asked the human resource development (HRD) ministry and chairman of the Central Counselling Board (CCB) to file their replies within a week on a petition alleging that seats were offered arbitrarily to students during counselling for the All India Entrance for Engineering Examinations (AIEEE).

The petition was filed by 19-year-old Vaibhav Gupta, who appeared for the AIEEE and secured all-India rank of 45,107 and in Delhi 3,972. According to his petition, he was denied admission to a government engineering college despite there being many vacant seats and was offered seats in private institutions during the counselling.

Justice Rajiv Sahai Endlaw also asked the CCB chairman to appear in person Oct 8 and explain that when Vaibhav was given a seat in Chhattisgarh, how many seats were vacant at the government engineering colleges and universities.

Gupta was forced to take admission at the Institute of Technology, Guru Ghasi Das Vishwavidyalaya which was his preference number 129. “There were around 300 seats vacant during the fifth counselling out of which 23 seats were vacant in different government colleges in Delhi,” said the petition.

The petition also alleged that the CCB was trying to fill up the seats of private universities and keeping the seats in government colleges and other established institutions vacant.

“The authorities are engaged in encouraging private universities at the cost of government engineering colleges and compelling the students to take admissions in such private universities,” said the petition.

According to it, these private universities and engineering colleges are offering seats on their own to the students who have not even participated in AIEEE and despite this offer, their seats are not being filled up as students prefer government-run engineering colleges and NITs as they are better institutions in terms of infrastructure facilities and placement.