In a major relief to the six students, the Delhi High Court granted them admission to St Stephens College on Friday, September 6. The students had filed a petition after they could not get admission in the college despite being allotted a seat by the DU, due to the ongoing dispute between the college and the university’s seat matrix.
The court, in its hearing, said that the students were not at fault at any point of time and yet they had to face undue hardship due to the dispute between DU and St Stephen’s College.
“On the one hand, the applicant was faced with uncertainty and on the other hand, he also lost the opportunity to apply for admission to another university of his choice. This issue is resolved in favour of the applicant,” the court said.
Since the bone of contention between the school and the university was over the allocation of seats, the court said that all universities having complaints regarding the allocation of seats shall submit their complaints to the authority three months before the commencement of the admission process and the same shall be decided within two months of receipt of the complaint.
The court also said St Stephen’s claim that the common seat allocation system has “no legal force” was “without merit”.
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“St Stephens has not at any point challenged the CSAS. The CSAS is binding on all DU-affiliated colleges and this policy has been in place for years,” the tribunal said.
It also refused to rule on the constitutionality of the quota for unmarried girls, raised by St Stephens. The Court said: “The applications for admission have been filed by students, the scope of this appeal is limited to denying admission to the petitioners and the court, in making a ruling, cannot examine the constitutionality of the quota.”
“If St. Stephen’s felt genuinely aggrieved, it should have approached the authority. The university cannot now take a contradictory stance when it itself has adhered to the policy. The allotment made by DU cannot be termed illegal or arbitrary,” the court added.
It may be mentioned that the Delhi High Court had earlier granted an interim relief to the six students, granting them provisional admission. The Court said that there was no fault of the students who had successfully cleared the CUET examination and other formalities. It added that the students were in suspense regarding their admission.
The students applied for admission under the ‘girls only quota’ provision of Delhi University.
However, on Wednesday, St. Stephen’s College argued before the Delhi High Court that the quota imposed by Delhi University (DU) violated the right to equality before the law.
DU’s attorney opposed the filing, arguing that the objection had never been raised before.
It is worth mentioning here that the DU admissions bulletin states that a place must be reserved in each programme, within the framework of the “supernumerary quota for a single girl” at each affiliated university. To this end, parents or guardians must declare that the candidate is an only child, without siblings.
(With contributions from Shruti Kakkar)
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