Rajiv Kumar of IIT- Kharagpur feels that seats should be declared vacant after a certain timeframe and should be open for admissions again. “IITs should also refund the fees deposited so that seats are not unnecessarily blocked.”

Around 158 seats were vacant in general category across IIT in 2008-09. In IIT- Roorkee, around 74 seats were vacant followed by 47 in IIT-Kharagpur, 16 in IIT- Gawahati, 9 in IIT- Kanpur, 8 in IIT- Bombay and 2 in IIT- Delhi in the same period. The data does not include the seats withdrawn during the mid-semester. The vacant seats at Dhanbad and IIT-BHU are also not included in the data. Looking at the situation, a second round of admission was introduced for the vacant seats for academic session 2009-10, but many are still vacant. As IITs never circulate the data regarding occupied and vacant seats, which resulted as condemnation of IIT admission policy in April by the Andhra Pradesh High Court. HC observed that around 8 percent of seats were vacant when compared to total intake of students.

Though the IITs have come up with third round of admissions, the problem is still unsolved as students are opting out of the institutes regardless of the fact that they have paid the initial fees. The students who have not paid fees are not allowed to take up admissions. A student can appear twice for JEE, but they are not allowed for the second attempt if he or she has paid fee to get into the merit list in first attempt.

Many students drop admission as they want to attempt for JEE to improve their rankings. But this time, the students, who had already paid fees in first attempt, were denied admission by all the IITs across the country.