NEW DELHI:
The High Court on Friday issued notice to Delhi University on a plea by St. Stephen’s College seeking to stay the varsity’s letter asking the college to withdraw its prospectus for the undergraduate courses for the academic year 2022-23.
A Bench of Acting Chief Justice Vipin Sanghi and Justice Sachin Datta, however, declined to interfere with DU’s letter till the next date of hearing, on July 6.
The High Court posted St. Stephen’s College’s plea with a petition filed by a law student seeking direction to the college to admit undergraduate students to its unreserved seats based only on the marks received by students in the Common University Entrance Test (CUET).
The college has been at loggerheads with DU over its admission criteria for undergraduate courses with either party refusing to back off. The college, asserting its minority institution character, has said it will accord 85% weightage to CUET scores and 15% to interviews for all candidates, which has been opposed by DU, which wants interviews to be conducted only for the reserved category students.
St. Stephen’s College, represented by advocate Romy Chacko, said it has conducted interviews of non-minority students for the last 40 years.
“The management must be permitted to mould the institution as they think fit and in accordance with their ideas of how the interest of the community in general and the institution in particular will be best served,” the college has said in its petition.
On May 24, the Vice-Chancellor of DU sent a letter to the Principal of St. Stephen’s College to withdraw the admission prospectus from the college’s website and to select general category candidates based only on their CUET marks.
