DU Admissions: Delhi High Court Issues Notice On Plea Challenging Decision Of St. Stephen's College To Conduct Interviews For General Seats

The Delhi High Court on Wednesday issued notice on a public interest litigation challenging the decision of St. Stephen's College to conduct an interview round for admissions to general category for the academic year 2022-23, despite Delhi University's policy doing away with the same.

A Division Bench of Acting Chief Justice Vipin Sanghi and Justice Sachin Datta has directed the Respondents to file their response in the matter in four weeks and has fixed the case for July 6.

The plea has been filed by Konika Poddar, a law student at DU, through Advocate Akash Vajpai, stating that taking interviews where award of marks is left to the subjective satisfaction of the selection committee gives ample room for discrimination and manipulation.

The plea states that admissions in DU's undergraduate courses is ordinarily based on candidates' intermediate marks and from last couple of years, the Cut off for admission in some of the most sought colleges has remained 100%. However, now, a Committee constituted by the University has recommended that admissions may be carried out through a Common University Entrance Test (CUET).

DU's Admission policy specifically mentions that admission on the unreserved seats in its minority colleges like St. Stephen's will be done only on the basis of marks obtained in CUET while on reserved seats minority colleges can give 15% weightage to the interview and 85% weightage to the CUET score at the time of admission.

"The aforesaid recommendation of the committee was boon for those lakhs of students who wanted to study in Respondent No. 2 University but did not have enough marks in their intermediate exams," the plea states at the outset.

The recommendation has been approved by DU's Academic Council and the practise of taking admission on the basis of intermediate marks is scrapped.

However, the grievance of the Petitioner is that St. Stephen's College has refused to follow DU's instructions vis-a-vis its unreserved seats and has issued a press release and admission notice, stating that it will conduct interviews for both reserved and unreserved seats and give 15% weightage to interview and 85& weightage to CUET Marks at the time of admission in its undergraduate courses.

It is argued that insistence of conducting an interview round is against DU's admission policy and also against the mandate of Academic and Executive Council of DU.

The plea refers to an article penned by the ex-principal of St. Stephen's college, Valson Thampu, as per which, there have been irregularities in its interview process in the past.

"Interviews are notoriously vulnerable to subjective considerations, besides being weighed in favour of candidates from privileged socioeconomic backgrounds," Thampu said in article for the Indian Express.

Significantly, the college has also moved before the High Court and its writ petition is likely to be taken up by a single bench tomorrow.

Case Title: Konika Poddar v. SL Stephen's College & Ors.