The IIT-JEE for admission to the prestigious Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs), which has been criticised for not being transparent, will be more open from this year.
For the first time students appearing for the Joint Entrance Exam (JEE) will get an opportunity to verify their evaluated answer scripts on the JEE website. The scanned answer sheets will be posted on the website immediately after the results are announced.
Moreover, the “key” containing correct answers to all the questions will be placed on the website within 48 hours of the examination. Students can lodge objections, if any, on the “key”. IIT-JEE officials will verify the objections and make changes accordingly if found to be genuine and release the “final key”, which will also be posted online.
This year, IIT-Kanpur is conducting the examination, on April 10, across the country, and the results are expected to be announced in the last week of May. Till 2009, the results were declared online, but candidates were not shown their answer sheets. Now a student will have access to see his/her answer sheets. A password will be given to each student for the purpose, said Mr S.G. Dhande, director, IIT-Kanpur. There has been intense pressure on the IITs to make the JEE transparent after it was found that there were several irregularities during evaluation of answer scripts in 2006, when IITs failed to explain the cut-off marks followed for various subjects while giving ranks.
Some RTI activists and NGOs had approached the Supreme Court on the issue in 2009. Lawyer Prashant Bhushan filed a PIL on behalf of Prof Rajiv Kumar of IIT Kharagpur, alleging grave irregularities in the IIT-JEE. The PIL urged the court to direct IITs to provide students with carbon copies of their answer sheets at the time of the test and put out the answer sheets on the website.