The Supreme Court on Friday stayed the counselling and admissions process to the Indian Institute of Technology over the controversy regarding the grace marks granted to candidates who appeared for the Joint Entrance Examination (Advanced) 2017, PTI reported. The bench has also directed all high courts not to entertain any plea related to the matter, reported CNN News18.

The bench of Justices Dipak Misra and AM Khanwilkar sought details of the petitions pending before various high courts, challenging the IIT-JEE 2017 rank list. The matter has been posted for further hearing on July 10.

Students were awarded grace marks as the answer key to seven questions had gone missing. On June 30, the Supreme Court had issued a notice to the Centre, the IIT and chairman of JEE while hearing a petition that challenged the awarding of grace marks. The petitioner had alleged that it was unfair that all students were granted bonus marks, irrespective of whether they had attempted the said questions.

On July 6, the joint admission board of IIT had said that it was not possible to revise the merit list now since nearly thousand candidates had already been allotted seats in various engineering colleges, The Times of India reported. The premier institute said that if the admission process is disturbed, more than 36,000 students in 97 institutes would be affected.