Days after directing St Stephen’s to grant provisional admission to 6 students, Delhi HC restrains students from attending college

In an interim judgment on August 23, a single-judge bench of Justice Swarana Kanta Sharma directed St Stephen’s College to provide provisional admission to the six DU aspirant petitioners. Additionally, Justice Sharma also directed DU to open its portal for depositing fees only for the six petitioners, if they do not succeed in their plea and can then be granted admission to the college of their second preference.

Senior Advocate Romy Chacko, representing St Stephen’s College, argued before the division bench on Thursday that the original petitioner-aspirants can be permitted to continue in their second preference college.

Chacko argued DU has allocated the students to St Stephen’s well beyond the college’s sanctioned intake. The college informed the court its sanctioned intake is 50 students of which 25 are reserved for minority students, five other seats for reserved categories, and 25 of the remaining for general category students. Against the 25 general category seats, DU allotted seats to 36 aspirants.

“We don’t have infrastructure for it… The university has given an order that grant admission to all such students (36 who were allotted St Stephen’s),” Chacko submitted, adding that in effect DU is bypassing the second direction of the single judge’s order which also directed that the varsity open the portal for the students to opt for a second preference college.

Meanwhile, ACJ Manmohan orally remarked, “Why is the university creating this mess? You’re playing with lives, careers… Please tell your university that their conduct has been noted and that better sense will prevail.”

While directing the parties to file their responses and submissions and directing that the students not be permitted to attend classes at St Stephen’s College, the division bench also brought forward the hearing of the matter before the single judge bench to September 4. The single judge had otherwise scheduled the hearing for September 11.