The Delhi High Court on Wednesday asked St. Stephen’s College and Delhi University to respond to a plea seeking direction to the college to admit undergraduate students for its unreserved seats based only on marks received by students in the Common University Entrance Test (CUET).
A bench of Acting Chief Justice Vipin Sanghi and Justice Sachin Datta also issued notice to the University Grants Commission (UGC) on the petition filed by Konika Poddar, a law student, and listed it for hearing on July 6.
Ms. Poddar, in her petition filed through advocate Akash Vajpai, said she approached the court on behalf of several students who aspire to study in St. Stephen’s College and would be appearing for CUET in the near future.
The college has been at loggerheads with DU over its admission criteria for undergraduate courses, with either party refusing to back off. The college, asserting its minority institution character, has said it will accord 85% weightage to CUET scores and 15% to interviews for all candidates, a stand strongly opposed by DU, which wants interviews to be conducted only for the reserved category students.
‘Violative of Article 14’
The plea stated that 50% of the seats in St. Stephen’s College are reserved for Christian students. “It is not clear as to how the minority character of the college will be affected or prejudiced if students belonging to non-Christian community are given admission solely on the basis of marks obtained in the CUET examination and not by interview,” it said.
The petition added that the “method of interview in the present case results in discrimination and is violative of Article 14 of the Constitution as it has no reasonable nexus with the object of affording an equality of opportunity of education at graduate level”.
Conflict over admission process
The University Grants Commission (UGC) had notified on March 21 that all UGC-funded universities should admit students to their undergraduate courses from the academic session 2022-2023 based on CUET that will be held in 13 languages.
Subsequently, on March 22, the Academic Council of Delhi University accepted the recommendations of its standing committee on the introduction of CUET for admission to undergraduate courses for all its colleges, including its minority colleges such as St. Stephen’s College.
In April, Delhi University issued a new admission policy for reserved seats, allowing minority colleges to give 85% weightage to CUET scores and 15% to interviews by the college.
The new admission policy, as per the petition, also stated that admission in unreserved seats of minority colleges would be only on the basis of merit of CUET scores.
Following this, St. Stephen’s College on April 20 issued a press release where it declared that it will follow the same procedure both for reserved and unreserved category candidates — 85% weightage to CUET scores and 15% weightage to interviews. This decision was reflected in its prospectus issued on May 23.
