A student who says errors in her JEE (Main) 2025 evaluation and her exclusion from the second session cost her a shot at the IITs has failed to secure relief from the Delhi High Court, which held that a supernumerary seat cannot be carved out on a chain of assumptions and that sympathy cannot override the eligibility rules applied to lakhs of candidates.
New Delhi: The Delhi High Court has dismissed a writ petition by a 19-year-old JEE aspirant challenging the rejection of her representation by the Organising Chairman of JEE (Advanced) 2026 at IIT Roorkee and seeking admission to an IIT for the 2026 session on the strength of her JEE (Main) 2025 examination [Ms. Ashi Agarwal v. Union of India and Others].
Justice Jasmeet Singh, in a judgment pronounced on October 1, 2026, rejected the respondents’ objections on territorial jurisdiction and res judicata, but held that no ground was made out for interference under Article 226.
Background of the case
The petitioner passed Class XII from Army Public School, Bareilly in 2024 and, after a drop year, took JEE (Main) 2025 Session I on January 28, 2025. She alleged that five questions, three in Physics and two in Chemistry, were wrongly evaluated, costing her 20 marks and attracting 5 negative marks. At the Session II exam on April 2, 2025, she says she reached the centre at about 8:25 am, before the 8:30 am gate-closing time, but fell ill and vomited while waiting, and was then refused entry. She also alleges that she and her mother were assaulted by security staff. Her final percentile was 85.9241340, short of the JEE (Advanced) cut-off.
Her first writ petition, filed in April 2025, saw the NTA produce an audit log, which she said contained discrepancies including a wrong exam date, time stamps after the exam ended, mismatched question and option IDs, and one question where the log recorded Option 8 but the response sheet Option 6. On May 12, 2026, that petition was disposed of with a direction to the Organising Chairman, JEE (Advanced) 2026, to decide it as a representation. She was not allowed to sit JEE (Advanced) on May 17, 2026, and on May 18 the Organising Chairman rejected her representation, observing that the issues fell within the NTA’s domain. Interim relief in the present case was declined on May 29, 2026; that order was challenged before the Supreme Court and has attained finality.
Rival submissions
Counsel for the petitioner argued that the rejection order did not meaningfully engage with the audit log discrepancies or the undisclosed basis of the ‘hypothetical’ percentile of 92.3911227 the NTA attributed to her if the disputed questions were marked correct, and that Criterion A4 could not be applied mechanically when her loss of eligibility flowed from the respondents’ errors. Relying on S. Krishna Sradha v. State of Andhra Pradesh, she sought moulded relief, including a supernumerary seat. The NTA contended that the grievances had been settled in the earlier petition and that the matter had become infructuous, while IIT Roorkee argued that it neither conducts nor evaluates JEE (Main) and cannot relax eligibility conditions.
Jurisdiction and res judicata
The Court held it had territorial jurisdiction, since the impugned decision flowed from its own earlier direction. It also rejected the res judicata plea, as the earlier order had only directed consideration of a representation and had not decided the merits. That, however, did not conclude the matter.
Disputed facts and a chain of contingencies
Finding that the rejection order had considered all her grievances, including that she would not meet the cut-off even if all disputed questions were resolved in her favour, the Court held that the audit log and percentile disputes, and the circumstances of her exclusion from Session II, were disputed questions of fact requiring a technical examination it could not undertake in writ jurisdiction absent demonstrable error or arbitrariness. It added:
“More importantly, the relief sought by the petitioner requires several consequential assumptions to be made. It would first have to be held that the Session-I examination was incorrectly evaluated; thereafter that the petitioner would have obtained the requisite percentile upon correction; further that she would have qualified for JEE (Advanced); and finally that she would have secured admission through the prescribed admission process. Such a chain of contingencies cannot furnish the foundation for a mandatory direction for admission to an IIT.”
Criterion A4 admits no relaxation
Criterion A4 of Clause 11 of the JEE (Advanced) 2026 brochure limits eligibility to candidates who first appeared in Class XII in 2025 or 2026. The petitioner first appeared in 2024, and the Court held that the criterion applies uniformly, gives the authorities no discretion to relax it, and is not displaced by her possible eligibility for the 2025 examination. Creating a supernumerary seat in a merit-based process, it said, cannot be treated as an ordinary consequential relief, and Krishna Sradha could not be used to bypass the eligibility framework where the alleged errors remained unproven. The Court concluded:
“However, sympathy or the possibility of an academic loss cannot substitute for satisfaction of the eligibility requirements prescribed for admission to the IITs. The Court is required to apply the governing framework uniformly, unless a legally sustainable basis for deviation therefrom is established.”
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Observing that the relief would reopen a concluded examination and admission cycle and require a mode of admission outside the rules, the Court dismissed the petition.
Case Title: Ms. Ashi Agarwal v. Union of India and Others [W.P.(C) 7955/2026]
Bench: Justice Jasmeet Singh, Delhi High Court
Date of Judgment: October 1, 2026
For the Petitioner: Gunjan Sinha Jain, Omar Hoda, Uday Bhatia, Aviral Jain and Abhinav Chakrabarty, Advocates
For the Respondents: Puja S. Kalra, CGSC, for the Union of India; Sanjay Khanna, Standing Counsel, with Pragya Bhushan, Naman Dwivedi, Saurabh Pandey, Jaya Choudhary and Meemansa Dixit for the NTA; Arjun Mitra, Senior Advocate, with Jayanti Jha for the Organising Chairman, JEE (Advanced) 2026