'You Missed The Bus' : Supreme Court Refuses Relief To Student Who Lost Admission For Not Uploading OTP Within Time

The Supreme Court today dismissed a writ petition filed by a student who was aggrieved with the loss of his admission in the Mechanical Engineering course at Veermata Jijabai Technological Institute, Mumbai as he had failed to upload the One Time Password(OTP) within the stipulated time to confirm his admission.

The bench of Justices DY Chandrachud and Surya Kant in their order said,

"Admittedly the petitioner failed to upload OTP for confirmation of the admission at the institution within the stipulated time. Admissions have already been concluded. No case for interference under Article 32 has been made out."

The petitioner in the instant case had relied on the Supreme Court's  judgment in Prince Jasbir Singh v Union of India & Ors (Civil Appeal No. 6983 of 2021) where the Court had directed IIT Bombay to accommodate a Dalit student who had missed out of the admission deadline due to inability to pay fees in time.

"It is a common practice amongst the aspirants of professional courses like engineering or medical students to secure an admission in an institute that offers a seat to them through other exams but as and when the admission rounds of other competitive entrance examination commences and progresses in due course, the students try to upgrade their choices by securing desired colleges. Even the education that is provided in the State run institutes like VJTI is of higher quality as well as affordable. It is thus following a general trend petitioner had secured a seat in a private institute with an intention to upgrade. Despite the upgradation in securing the seat, the petitioner was denied admission in the Respondent No. 3 Institute," the petition had stated.

Courtroom Exchange

When the matter was called for hearing, Advocate Pai Amit for the petitioner submitted that due to calamity in the family the petitioner had to rush to Udaipur and could not come back on time. He further added that the petitioner had deputed a representative to do the needful.

"The OTP was sent to the candidate's number. He could not be there and had to ask somebody else to put the one time password. But the message could not reach on time," counsel further added.

While expressing the inclination to dismiss the petition, Justice DY Chandrachud, the presiding judge of the bench said, "There are so many other students, if you missed the bus, then you missed the bus, what can we do."

Although the Counsel requested the bench to issue notice on the limited extent in case there is a vacant seat, the bench refused.

"No no we are not going to do that. There will be many other students", the bench said.

Accordingly, the bench while noting that admissions have already been concluded in their order said,

"Admittedly the petitioner failed to upload OTP for confirmation of the admission at the institution within the stipulated time. Admissions have already been concluded. No case for interference under Article 32 has been made out."

The petition was drawn by Advocates Siddharth Chapalgaonkar and Sumit Sonare and Shivali Chaoudhary filed by Advocate Pai Amit.

Case Title: Aaditya Santosh Shrivastava v. State of Maharashtra| WP 98/2022

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