Last week, a notice had been issued by the Supreme Court in a plea challenging the procedure followed by St Stephen’s College of Delhi University in setting a cut-off that was unreasonably high for the seats reserved in the disabled category and diverting the thus unfulfilled seats to the General Christian category.
Chief Justice S.A. Bobde headed the bench and was hearing an SLP against a July 2019 decision taken by the Delhi High Court.
The bench dismissed the PIL alleging the above and it further refused to issue a mandamus to the College to summon candidates, against any course or quota, for participation in the interview and the written test, greater in number than already called by St Stephen’s College.
Senior Advocate Colin Gonsalves told the bench led by CJ Bobde on December 15 that the nodal officer of the University had stated that they had told the college that their cut-off was so absurdly high that disabled students were not getting admission. These were students with locomotor disability, blind students, and more than 87% of these students had been left out. All the seats of the disabled students were going vacant.
Then bench which also comprised Justices V. Ramasubramanian and A.S. Bopanna then proceeded to issue notice.
NEW SEATS TO BE ADDED IN EVERY DU COLLEGES IN THE PANDEMIC
Ms. Nandita Narain who is an Assistant Professor at St Stephen’s College has filed the petition before the High Court. She contended that against the quota reserved for various categories of applicant students, the college had in the previous year, called for interview and written test, lesser number of students than those who were required to be called. She alleged that as a result, the cut-off for admission against these categories of students was artificially raised, and as a result of fewer students applying, the resulting in seats remaining unfilled.
As against this, it was also alleged that in the “Christian others” (COTH) category, the number of applicants called for interview and written tests was far in excess of those who ought to have been called. Therefore, impliedly, it was sought to be alleged that seats which were essentially meant to be reserved for the special categories such as Non-Christian and Christian persons with disabilities, ST, etc. were diverted to the General category Christian.
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