New Delhi: Students from several institutes have come out in support of Siddhanth Batra, an 18-year-old from Agra, who lost his seat to a four-year electrical engineering course at IIT-Bombay after he mistakenly clicked on a wrong link during the admission process.
A petition has been filed on change.org by Sarthak Jain, a first year engineering student, demanding justice for Batra. The plea, filed Sunday, has received over 700 signatures so far.
According to a report in The Times of India, Batra had secured an All India Rank of 270 in JEE Advanced 2020. He was accepted in the first round of JEE Advanced counselling for electrical engineering at IIT-Bombay. It was completed on 18 October and Batra had also received a confirmation letter from the institute.
On 31 October, while looking for updates on his admission, Batra came across a link that read “withdraw from seat allocation and further rounds”. He clicked on it assuming he did not need to complete any further process since everything for him was already confirmed through the acceptance letter.
On 10 November, Batra saw his name missing from the list of students. When he approached IIT-Bombay, the authorities told him that it was due to his “own mistake”.
The petition, called ‘Justice for Siddhanth Batra’, reads: “Now, this is our duty to provide justice to him (Batra) by doing all that we can. He is undoubtedly the best brains in the country and definitely deserves a chance to study in the best institute of the country. JEE is rigorous and it is the dream of almost every child to study in these prominent institutes. Hence, he should definitely get what he deserves.”
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Student has moved Supreme Court
Earlier this month, Batra had moved the Bombay High Court, which initially directed the IIT to consider his plea as representation and pass appropriate orders. But a division bench of Chief Justice Dipankar Datta and Justice G.S. Kulkarni dismissed Batra’s petition on 23 November, noting that the IIT had considered his representation and passed its order.
Batra has now approached the Supreme Court to consider his appeal on humanitarian grounds. The apex court was supposed to hear the matter Tuesday, but it did not get listed, Prahlad Paranjpe, the lawyer representing Batra, told ThePrint.
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