After contempt notice, DU admits student to Law Faculty

In the admission entrance, Sareen had scored 231 marks. The admission for the general category stopped at 234 marks after seats were filled. Between 231 and 234, there were 67 students in this category.

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Sareen later filed a contempt petition against DU for not complying with court orders. The court, on September 19, asked DU to file a response within eight days “as to why contempt proceedings should not be initiated”. (Representational Image)

The Delhi University Monday gave admission to a general category student at Law Faculty against seats reserved for Scheduled Tribes — after the Delhi High Court issued it a contempt notice in this regard. Manmeet Kaur Sareen had moved the court on the last day of admission, August 31. The court had asked the university to reserve a seat for Sareen, as she had appeared in the entrance test and scored 231 marks.
Sareen later filed a contempt petition against DU for not complying with court orders. The court, on September 19, asked DU to file a response within eight days “as to why contempt proceedings should not be initiated”. On Monday, the university granted her admission.

After hearing arguments from DU and Sareen, the court had inter alia passed an order stating: “The ends of justice would definitely not be served if available seats in educational institutions are allowed to go to waste; this could also not have been the intention of the educational legislators; admitted position being that these seats would continue to remain vacant as they would not be carried forward to the next year. This would be a denial of opportunity to an otherwise meritorious student. In fact in the judgement of the Karnataka bench even where the vacancies in the Schedule Caste and Schedule Tribes could be carried forward, the Court had thought it fit to transfer those seats to the general category.”

In the admission entrance, Sareen had scored 231 marks. The admission for the general category stopped at 234 marks after seats were filled. Between 231 and 234, there were 67 students in this category. On September 5, Sareen submitted an application stating that 44 seats were lying vacant. Out of this, in Law Centre-II, which was her choice of centre, seven seats were lying vacant in the Scheduled Tribe category and one seat in the foreign national category, she submitted.

Stating that these seats would not be carried forward in the next academic year and lapse, Justice Indermeet Kaur passed the order on September 11 stating: “The petitioner be granted admission in any of the afore noted eight vacant seats.” The Delhi University ordinance states: “In case of non-availability of the eligible candidates, the reserved seats may be interchanged between the SC and ST. If still any seat remains unfulfilled, the same shall be left vacant.”

Before the court, the university had contended that since there were other candidates who had obtained more marks than Sareen, they could not grant her admission before them. But the HC said that since no other candidate approached the court or appeared before it, “the question of the court inviting such candidates would not be the correct approach”.

As an interim order, the court on Monday asked DU to come back with details of all the supernumerary seats so that these can be opened for admission.