Vertical Reservation For OBC And EWS Categories Has Been Restored, NLU Delhi Informs Delhi HC

The National Law University, Delhi, has told the Delhi High Court that it has restored the vertical reservation for OBC and EWS categories in its B.A. LL.B and LL.M programmes by making a correction in its revised admission notification.

The information about the said restoration was given through an affidavit before the Division Bench of Justice Hima Kohli and Justice Subramonium Prasad.

The said restoration of vertical reservation has been done in pursuance of the court's last order wherein the court had clarified that its order dated June 29 was only restricted to domicile reservation and had nothing to do with vertical reservations.

The court had further highlighted that the University had misinterpreted the court's order as the same had nothing to do with the vertical reservation for OBC and EWS categories and was only restricted to 50% domicile reservation.

The order has come in an application moved by Delhi Government challenging the admission notification issued by the National Law University, Delhi, so far as it eliminates vertical reservation for Other Backward Classes (OBC) and Economically Weaker Section (EWS) categories.

Moved as an application in a pending writ petition titled Balvinder Sangwan v. State of NCT of Delhi, it sought a clarification from the Court as to whether the maintenance of status quo ante, as mentioned in the order dated June 29, refers to only 50% domicile reservation and not to the vertical reservation for OBC and EWS categories.

The Delhi Government had submitted that the decision of the University to eliminate 22% reservation for OBC and 10% reservation for EWS in its Admission Notification released on June 30 is not only the incorrect interpretation of the court's order dated June 29, but it also goes against the University's constitutional and statutory obligations.

It was submitted that the present writ petition only concerned itself with the 50% domicile reservation, and had nothing to do with the vertical reservation for OBC and EWS categories.

It was argued in the application that the University is statutorily bound to provide vertical reservation to OBC under Central Educational Institutions (Reservation in Admission) Act, 2006.

In addition to this, the application also challenged the decision of the University to not to provide hostel accommodation to LL.M and PhD students. It says:

'Now, in terms of the Admission Notification dated 30.06.2020, only a total of 415 students (plus detainees and contingency if any) will have to be accommodated in the Hostels, as against provision for 480 accommodations', the application stated

It was the case of the Delhi Government that by its revised admission notification, the University is implicitly discouraging applications from candidates who may hail from OBC or EWS sections of society.

Therefore, the Delhi Government wanted the court to stay the operation of the revised admission notification dated 30/06/20 till the final disposal of the present application.

The application has been moved in the pending writ petition titled Balvinder Sangwan v. State of NCT of Delhi, wherein the Petitioner is being represented by Advocate Nipun Saxena.