Kapil Sibal clarifies on IIT JEE cut-off
The HRD Minister Kapil Sibal on Tuesday, Oct 20 clarified that any change in the eligibility criteria to appear in IIT-JEE exam will have to be taken by an IIT committee, and dubbed the media reports suggesting that he would be fixing the marks to 80 per cent for the entrance to IITs as ‘baseless’.
“The eligibility criteria to appear in JEE is decided by the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) themselves, and the only decision that has been taken by the IIT Council is that the IITs will submit a report in January 2010 to rationalize the JEE,” he said.
“The government of India has no role to play and any report which suggests that there is a proposal to allow only those who obtain 80 per cent marks in their class 12 examination to sit for JEE is baseless,” he said.
It was entirely up to the IITs to decide the criteria. It was they who would consider what weightage was to be given to the Class XII examination, and whether marks or percentile should be the basis for admission, he said. “The government has no jurisdiction in the matter, and the Human Resource Development Ministry can in no way, either directly or indirectly, decide or make any proposal for a decision.”