Court rejects plea for online bifocal option

Vaishnavi Kulkarni,who scored 92.91 per cent in her Class X examinations,had petitioned the court contending that there is an increasing demand for bifocal courses in the science faculty that include electronics,information technology,computer science and mechanical maintenance.

Her counsel Shekhar Naphade and Madhav Jamdar told the court that the process of admission to the bifocal sciences is carried out individually by each college that offers the subjects and as a result,less number of students get admission to bifocal courses. This,they argued,was a violation of the constitutional right to equality.

The state government’s counsel Sandeep Shinde,however,said the bifocal courses are offered under the science and commerce faculties in junior colleges and do not constitute a separate stream. He told the court that the admission brochures issued by Deputy Director of the Education department clearly indicated that there are only three streams — science,commerce and arts.

“The process of online admissions was intended to obviate hardships to students. Any process to streamline admissions for such a large body of students could not possibly be perfect,” the court observed. The court added that it is not possible to come to the conclusion that there is a manifest breach of the provision of the Article 14 of the Constitution of India and dismissed the petition.

Meanwhile,the first merit list was declared by the state government on Wednesday evening. Jamdar said they are contemplating filing an appeal in the Supreme Court.