The petitioners submitted that the different admission procedures for the Scheduled Castes applicants had resulted into several students of this category not getting admission in colleges and courses of their choices.
The Delhi High Court on Tuesday issued notices to Delhi University and the Union Ministry for Human Resources Development on a bunch of petitions by a group of Scheduled Caste students submitting that the University’s procedures for admissions to under-graduate courses were discriminatory against this category of students.
The petitioners submitted that the different admission procedures for the Scheduled Castes applicants had resulted into several students of this category not getting admission in colleges and courses of their choices.
One of the petitioner students, who had obtained 92 per cent marks in Class XII examinations, was unable to fill up the pre-admission form on-line as this facility was not available for this category of students. His local guardian also could not obtain a form as his certificates were with him and they could not be posted as well. So, he was forced to fill the pre-admission form meant for the general category student online but could not meet the cut off for this category and thereby denied admission.
The petition has cited four more such cases where students belonging to the Scheduled Castes have suffered due to the discriminatory procedures adopted by the University.
The petitioners further said that the University had issued different information bulletins for the general category and the OBC students and the Scheduled Caste students and the former had more detailed information as against the latter.
The Scheduled Caste applicants were required to collect the pre-admission forms in person from four designated centres on showing all the original certificates as they were not provided the facility of filling the form on-line as provided to the general category and the OBC students, the petitioners submitted.
The petitioners urged the Court to direct the university not to admit the general category students without providing for the percentage of reservation in proportion to the total of admitted students in accordance with the letter issued by the University on July 14.
They also urged the Court to direct the University to provide seats to the five petitioners in colleges and courses they were eligible on the basis of reservation of the total admission strength.
Issuing the notices, Justice G. S. Sistani asked the respondents to file replies to the petition by October 11.
Keywords: DU, DU admissions, HC notice to DU, SC/ST students
