New Delhi: In a big relief to the 18-year-old student who was on the verge of losing a seat at IIT Bombay, the Supreme Court on Wednesday directed the institute to grant him interim admission in an engineering course.
Siddhant Batra, a resident of Agra, had lost the seat for the four-year electrical engineering course after he "inadvertently" clicked on a "wrong" link, which was seeking consent to withdraw from the process.
A bench comprising Justices Sanjay Kishan Kaul, Dinesh Maheshwari and Hrishikesh Roy said: "List in the reopening miscellaneous week after the winter recess. In the meantime, by interim order, we direct that the petitioner should be permitted to join the respondent-institution and pursue his course subject to fulfilment of all other formalities."
Batra, represented by advocate Pralhad Paranjpe, in his petition, sought a direction to IIT to consider his case on humanitarian grounds. He said he lives with his grandparents following the death of his parents, and submitted that he had worked hard to clear the IIT-JEE exam. Batra requested the creation of an additional seat to undo his loss.
In his plea before the High Court, Batra submitted he had lost his father at a young age and lost his mother in 2018.
The counsel for Director IIT Bombay drew the top court's attention to Rule 46 to submit that the Batra had frozen his seat as per the said rule and completed the process.