Denied IIT seat, four Andhra Pradesh students move high court

The Andhra Pradesh HC on Monday asked IIT not to fill the seats offered to four Andhra students who were later denied admission citing poor percentile. 
    Justice Ramesh Ranganathan said this was violation of the Article 14 of the Constitution while dealing with a writ petition filed by Anudeep Pendyala and three others. 
    The students contended that they appeared in the JEE (advanced) 2013 after qualifying in JEE Mains and got good ranks in the JEE (advanced). 
    They were issued call letters and were called to Chennai for admission formalities and then denied admission. 
    Gandra Mohan Rao, the petitioner’s counsel , said the four were called for counseling and offered seats on the basis that the cut-off mark was 89.1% in intermediate. At the time of counseling, this was raised to 91.8%, he said. 
    Terming it arbitrary, the petitioners said, students with 60% were offered seats last year. 
    The judge said the sudden change of cut-off mark after call letters were dispatched was violative of Article 14 of the Constitution, and directed the authorities to keep aside the seats offered to the petitioners till finalization of case.