Delhi HC directs St Stephen’s College to admit 7 students

New Delhi
The Delhi high court on Friday directed St Stephen’s College to grant admission to seven students — clubbing two petitions, filed by six students and one student separately in the same matter — who were unable to secure admission despite being allotted a seat by the Delhi University (DU). The court upheld DU’s policy to allocate extra seats in the initial round, which was disputed by the college.
The common seat allocation system (CSAS) (UG) 2024, which grants the university power to allocate students in the initial rounds to commence the academic session on time, is binding on all the colleges affiliated with the university, a bench of justice Swarana Kanta Sharma said.
“Thus, this court holds that the CSAS, which is binding on all colleges affiliated to DU, clearly mentions that the university may allocate extra students in the initial rounds in order to ensure that academic session commences on time. Therefore, the contention raised on behalf of respondent no.3 St. Stephen’s College, that Delhi University’s policy of allocating extra students in the initial round is impermissible in law and arbitrary, is bereft of any merit,” the bench said.
The bench said, “It is also noteworthy that this policy of DU, of allocation of extra students in the initial rounds is not a new one and has been in place for the last two years. For the previous academic years, this policy had been mentioned in the bulletin of information itself, and the respondent no.3 herein had diligently followed the same by allowing extra intake in the initial rounds, not only for the unreserved category students but for Christian minority students also.”
Justice Sharma said students were not at fault at any point of the admission process, but had to face undue hardship due to the ongoing dispute between the university and the college over the seat matrix and the manner of calculation of allocated seats.
“The case reveals the cliff hanging situation of the candidates, who are the main characters of this case along with a college they aspire to study in and a university which allocated them the college to fulfil their dreams. It is unfortunate that the candidates, before stepping in their dream college had to step in the court premises with a plea that their legitimate claim of admission to the college, is being denied to them, though there is no fault on their part…,” the court said.
To prevent students from facing problems in attending classes in future and enable colleges to run their administration and classes without running to court, justice Sharma, in the 54-page verdict, also laid down a guideline directing all colleges aggrieved by the seat matrix to send their complaints to the university’s authority concerned at least three months before the initiation of the admission process for a new academic session.
Senior advocate Rishi Malhotra, along with advocates Ravinder Singh and Raveesha Gupta, appeared for the students, whereas the university and St Stephen’s College were represented by advocates Mohinder JS Rupal and Romy Chacko, respectively.
In its verdict, the court delved into several key aspects, including treating the 13 BA courses offered by Stephen’s, as single or distinct for the purpose of seat allocation, the legality of the CSAS, its power to adjudicate on the constitutionality of single girl child quota and if the fraction while calculating 5% extra seat allocation should be rounded off to the lower side or the higher side.
The students approached the high court seeking directions to St Stephen’s College to reserve a seat for the courses in which they had qualified, saying that the college neither rejected nor accepted their application despite completing all formalities. Though the single bench on August 23 directed the college to grant provisional admission to the students, their respite was short-lived as a division bench on August 29 restrained them from attending college until the disposal of their writ petition.
The college questioned the legality of the CSAS system, which contained the policy of allocating excess candidates in the first round of admission, arguing that the same neither had any statutory backing in the bulletin or any resolution of the executive or academic council. The college also contended that the 13 BA programmes offered by it should be treated as a single unified programme for seat allocation, and admission under the Christian minority and unreserved category as these courses were merely different subject combinations with one BA programme.
The court noted that the college introduced a different BA programme combination for the current academic session 2024-25, prepared the seat matrix and forwarded it to the university. “In this court’s opinion, the seat matrix offered by the college clearly indicates that St. Stephen’s College had offered 13 different B.A. programmes, each with its own specific allocation of seats for various categories of students. Moreover, the college has assigned different sanctioned seats for each of these programmes, both for Christian minority students, as well as unreserved/non-minority students,” the court said.
The court also delved into the aspect of whether fractions or decimals below 0.5 — while calculating 5% extra allocation — should be rounded off to 0 or the next whole number. While the college contended that decimals exceeding 0.5% should be rounded off to the next whole number, the university argued that the decimals below 0.5% should be rounded off to the next whole number. In the ruling, the court said that rounding off to the lower numerical figure would undermine the spirit of the policy.
“When dealing with fractions like 1.2 or 1.3 or 1.4 in the context of seat allocations, the figure must be rounded up to 2, as humans cannot be divided into fractions, and rounding off to the lower numerical figure would undermine the spirit of the policy,” the court said.
The college argued that there was no legal rationale behind the creation of a single girl child quota, but the court refused to adjudicate on the same, saying that it could not delve into it as the same was being raised by the college for the first time. “​​The scope of these writ petitions is confined to the denial of admission to the petitioners, and this court, while adjudicating the petitions, cannot delve into the constitutionality of a quota introduced by the university, especially when such a challenge is being raised by the college for the first time in these proceedings, where it is only one of the respondents,” the order read.