Hi

Yes it's valid provided it is according to the format Josaa asked for.

According to the business rules JOSAA 2021

Documents to be uploaded by Candidates for Registration/Online Reporting (for Admission to NIT+ System)

3. Certificate of category (SC/ST/OBC-NCL/GEN-EWS), if applicable, as per Government

of India format, available on the JoSAA-2021 website, issued by the competent authority.

In case of OBC-NCL/GEN-EWS category, the certificate must be issued on or after April 01, 2021.

Please note that

(i) Caste certificate (SC/ST/OBC-NCL) issued by Maharashtra State must be validated by Social

Welfare department (in case of SC and OBC-NCL category) and Tribal Welfare department (in

case of ST category) of Maharashtra Government. The SC/ST/OBC-NCL candidates of

Maharashtra State have to produce their caste validity certificate in the format available

on JoSAA-2021 website.

Documents to be uploaded by Candidates for Registration/Online

Reporting (for Admission to IIT)

3. Certificate of category (SC/ST/OBC-NCL/GEN-EWS), if applicable [in the format provided

in the Information Brochure of JEE (Advanced) 2021 or as per Government of India

format, available on the JoSAA-2021 website, issued by the competent authority].

In case of OBC-NCL/GEN-EWS category, the certificate must be issued on or after April 01, 2021.

Pls note

If the documents are found to be invalid for reasons other than willful forgery / act of cheating, then the following rules will be applied in addition to the change of category tag or gender or nationality:

(A) If the GEN-EWS, OBC-NCL, SC, ST, PwD or DS certificate is found to be invalid or not produced AND the candidate satisfies all other requirements AND the seat is allocated in the OPEN category, then the offer of admission will

be provisionally confirmed.

(B) If the OBC-NCL certificate is found to be invalid or not produced AND the candidate satisfies all other requirements AND the seat is allocated in OBC-NCL category, then

(i) Allocated seat will be cancelled.

(ii) The candidate will be considered for seat allocation as a GEN candidate in the subsequent round(s) of seat allocation (if any), provided all other criteria are satisfied [e.g., present in the respective rank list, etc.].

The rule as stated above in (B) for OBC-NCL will be applied similarly if the GEN- EWS, DS, SC or ST certificate is found to be invalid or not produced.

Pls refer to the business rules of Josaa released today!

Hope I am clear in answering your query!