Admit candidate whose seat was cancelled in next academic year: Delhi HC to DU

The HC was hearing the plea of Ravindra Bishnoi who claimed that the seat allotted to him in BA (Hons) Geography in Kirori Mal College on October 19, 2022, was cancelled on October 21, 2022, by Delhi University erroneously for “non-fulfilment of the subject mapping criteria”.

The HC, however, noted that the time schedule for admission in educational institutions has to be adhered to. The HC noted that there was a delay on Bishnoi’s part in approaching the court (one month seven days after his seat was cancelled) led to the conclusion of the admission process, possibly, even before the filing of his plea. The court said that no exceptional circumstances warrant that he be admitted in 2022-23 academic year.

The High Court said it cannot be “unmindful” to the university’s untenable action which “foisted litigation” on Bishnoi. “Therefore, regard being had to the fact that the seat allotted to the petitioner was arbitrarily and erroneously cancelled by the university in breach of the terms and conditions stipulated in the bulletin of information for no fault of the petitioner, and further considering that the petitioner is a deserving and meritorious student who made it to the merit list in the round 1 of the counselling, the University of Delhi is directed to admit the petitioner in the next academic year for BA (Hons) Geography in the same institute, Kirori Mal College,” the HC said.

Candidates appearing for the CUET were advised by the National Testing Agency in March last year to refer to the bulletin of information for admission to undergraduate programmes of the desired central universities for admission to the undergraduate programmes.

Bishnoi, a humanities student from Rajasthan who scored 86.60% in his Class XII board, had opted for two languages, English and Hindi, and had further opted for Geography/Geology, History and Political Science as per requirements laid out in DU’s bulletin of information. Based on his marks in CUET (UG) 2022, he was allotted a seat in BA (Hons) Geography at Kirori Mal College in Common Seat Allocation System Round 1 on October 19, 2022. Bishnoi accepted the same on October 20 but on the next day, said allocation was cancelled for “non-fulfilment of subject-mapping criteria”.

The court noted that Bishnoi first filed the plea on November 27, 2022 removed objections and the plea was registered on November 29, 2022 and heard on November 30, 2022 wherein notice was issued to the respondents. DU took the stand that Bishnoi opted to appear in History paper in CUET which he did not study in his Class XII board and as per the Bulletin of Information, “a candidate is required to appear only in those papers in CUET which were studied at Class XII”.

Bishnoi argued that since English Literature was not mentioned in the list of 27 Domain Specific Subjects, he had opted for History as one of the subjects for CUET examination which was closely related to English Literature. He invited the court’s attention to Clause 4 under the heading of ‘Important Points’ in DU’s Bulletin of Information which reads, “In case the subject studied at Class XII is not mentioned in the CUET, the candidate must appear in the subject that is similar / closely related to the subject s(he) has studied at Class XII”.

It was argued that Bishnoi had fulfilled the Common Minimum Eligibility, as well as, the Program Specific Eligibility prescribed in the Bulletin of Information urged that the cancellation of the seat allotted to him is ” bad in law”. DU contended that the admission process had concluded, therefore, the plea had become infructuous with lapse of time.

The court noted that DU did not clarify its stand with respect to Clause 4 of the ‘Important Points’ in the bulletin relied by Bishnoi and its counter affidavit is “conspicuously silent as to whether the subject English Literature studied by the Petitioner at Class XII is closely related to the subject History” in which the Bishnoi opted to appear.