The direction comes after an aspirant approached the court on awarding of “bonus marks”.

The Supreme Court on Friday froze the admission process to the prestigious Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs), while questioning the granting of bonus marks to all candidates who appeared in the IIT JEE (Advanced) 2017 examination.

Bonus marks were given to compensate for wrong questions in two of the papers. They were granted irrespective of whether a candidate had answered them or not. The exam was conducted this year by the IIT- Madras and the decision to give bonus marks was taken by it.

In a move rendering uncertain the future of over 50,000 students, a Bench of Justices Dipak Misra and A.M. Khanwilkar stayed the admission process, including the counselling, until further orders on a writ petition filed by an IIT aspirant Aishwarya Agarwal, who had taken the exam.

The court further restrained High Courts from entertaining any cases filed on the same issue and sought details of any petitions pending before the courts. It has scheduled a detailed hearing on July 10.

Ms. Agarwal, represented by senior advocate Vikas Singh, argued that a blanket award of 18 bonus marks to all candidates, across the board, was both “arbitrary and wrong.”

“To award these marks to all candidates irrespective of whether or not they they had even attempted to answer these questions is arbitrary and violative,” the petition contended.

She said statistics reveal the aftermath of the authorities’ action. Out of 1.59 lakh students who appeared for the exam, 50,455 were declared to be qualified for admission to various IITs this year.

On the contrary, the petition contended, only 36,566 made it last year.

JEE (Advanced) is the second phase of the IIT entrance tests and is conducted by one of the IITs annually. The All India Rank list is prepared subsequently and various IITs are allotted to successful candidates.

“Due to the distribution of bonus marks, nearly 20,000 students, who were not deserving, qualified for the cut-off... this has adversely affected several meritorious students... Even a difference of one mark may lead to the falling of a candidate’s rank by 1000 to 2000,” the petition said.