In Brief
The State of Odisha challenged a High Court order that allowed engineering colleges to admit B.Tech students based on qualifying examination marks instead of the mandatory centralized entrance test required by the Odisha Professional Educational Institutions Act 2007. The Supreme Court held that the statute's requirement for entrance tests cannot be bypassed by court order, and the High Court's mandamus was legally unjustified. However, the Court invoked Article 142 to preserve admission of 592 direct-entry and 243 lateral-entry students already admitted under the High Court's order, recognizing extraordinary COVID-19 hardship while reaffirming the law for future years.
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