Inform students about ineligibility before allotting college seat, end of first semester: HC to MU

“We may observe that this Court has come across similar matters time and again. We therefore, observe that the University should inform the students about their ineligibility before allotting the seat in any college or at least before completion of first semester,” the Court said. The HC said that such matters were raised before it time and again and that this solution will resolve the issues that appeared before the court.

A division bench of Justice Atul S Chandurkar and Justice Jitendra S Jain on January 15 passed an order in a plea by Rohan Ravindra Thatte, who appeared for the State Common Entrance Test (CET) for law courses in July, 2012 and was declared a successful candidate in the open category in October, 2021. He passed the BA exam with 45.15 % in April, 2020. Thatte was allotted a seat through the Central Admission Process (CAP) in a law college in Chembur.

Advocates Vikram Walawalkar and Arjun Kadam informed the court that Thatte had furnished all the documents including three years’ marksheets of his BA course to the law college, which in turn forwarded the same to MU in May, 2022.

Based on the same, his admission was confirmed by the MU and the concerned law college for academic year 2021-22.

The MU, on December 17, 2022 informed the petitioner about his ineligibility for taking admission to LLB Course as he scored less than the required for the undergraduate course. The aggrieved petitioner on January 5, 2023 approached the High Court challenging the communication by MU citing his ineligibility. The said communication sought the petitioner to be debarred from pursuing the LL.B course.

The HC through its March 6 and November 24, 2023 orders permitted the petitioner to appear for semester III, IV and V exams, which he cleared and now is in the final sixth semester.

The MU said the petitioner had obtained less than 45 percent marks in BA and was hence not eligible to continue the course.

The bench noted that the MU did not dispute it had informed about his ineligibility only after the seat was allotted to him and that too at the end of the second semester.

The HC quashed and set aside the December 17, 2022 communication. It told the MU to declare the petitioner’s results of the semesters for which he had appeared but were withheld and not declared yet.

“It would not be fair to inform the student about his/her ineligibility at the fag end of the course since by then the student would have invested much time, money and energy in completion of the course. This would go a long way in resolving such an issue that comes before the Court time and again,” it observed.