Students confuse as CBSE makes Aadhaar mandatory for JEE

Notice available on JEE's official website. Supreme Court of India ruled that the Aadhaar card can only be linked with only six government schemes on a voluntary basis. If Aadhaar details do not match the candidates will not be able to fill the application form for JEE (Main)–2017.

Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) recently announced that to be eligible to sit in the prestigious Joint Entrance Examination aspirants must have their Aadhaar card. 

Available in JEE's official website, the notification states that "All the Indian citizen candidates should possess AADHAAR card issued by UIDAI. At the time of filling application form of JEE (Main)–2017, the candidates will have to enter their AADHAAR number, name, date of birth & gender which will be validated with the UIDAI’s data.  In case, these particulars do not match, the candidates will not be able to fill the application form for JEE (Main)–2017."

The board has advised the candidates to rectify any error on their Aadhaar card and ensure that details such as name, date of birth, and gender on their Aadhaar card are as per school records. 

However, the problem that the candidates might possibly face is that the application process starts on 1 December and the last date is 2 January, whereas the usual time required for making any changes on the Aadhaar card is one month making it difficult for the students to get Aadhaar card corrected on time. 

Interestingly, a year ago Supreme Court of India ruled that the Aadhaar card can only be linked with only six government schemes on a voluntary basis. So many are pointing out that this CBSE move is against the court order. 

JEE is India's leading engineering exam to get through Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs), National Institutes of Technology (NITs), Indian Institutes of Information Technology (IIITs) and other government funded Technical Institutions (GFTIs).