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The Delhi High Court has directed the University of Delhi (DU) to grant admission to a candidate belonging to the other backward classes (OBC) for the three-year LLM course despite the fact that the exams for the first semester are already underway.

The Court was dealing with a writ petition filed by a student whose candidature was rejected by DU in the ‘spot admission’ round held on December 31, 2021, for the two-year/three-year LLM program.

A bench of Justice Rekha Palli while dealing with the petition observed that she cannot lose sight of the fact that the purpose of reservation in education for OBC candidates is to encourage students in fulfilling their dream to obtain higher education and therefore all authorities have a duty to take steps in furtherance of this constitutional goal of reservation.

“I cannot also lose sight of the fact that the purpose of reservation for OBC candidates is to encourage such students to fulfill their dream to obtain higher education. All the authorities, therefore, have a duty to take such steps in furtherance of this constitutional goal of reservation for OBC candidates,” Court said.

The petitioner stated that he had acquired the LLB degree from DU and had then applied for the LLM course in the OBC category. As per the admission bulletin, the students applying under the OBC category were required to furnish an OBC Non-Creamy Layer (NCL) Certificate for the financial year 2021-22.

However, the bulletin contained a provision enabling students in the OBC category, who were not in possession of the aforesaid certificate for the financial year 2021-22, to apply for admission by uploading either the earlier certificate or the acknowledgment slip of having applied for issuance of same for 2021-22, subject to their producing the requisite OBC-NCL certificate for 2021-22 at the time of admission.

The petitioner further stated that since he was already in possession of the 2018 certificate issued to him by the State of Uttar Pradesh, he submitted his application and uploaded a copy of the said certificate. He then appeared for the entrance test but his name did not appear on the three allotment lists issued by the university.

On December 30, 2021, the University informed the students about a fourth allotment list for spot admissions. The petitioners’ appeared on the fourth list.

At around 8:59 pm on December 31, 2021, a communication was sent by the DU that all the shortlisted candidates should upload all the requisite documents between 9 am and 1 pm on the same day and a payment link for the payment of fees after the verification of documents would be generated by 10 pm on the same day.

As he uploaded all his documents, he received another communication stating that his admission was not approved as the OBC Non-Creamy Layer certificate submitted by him did not pertain to the required financial year. Though the petitioner requested the university to grant him more time, the request was rejected on the ground that no opportunity for furnishing the documents at a later stage in the spot admission round could be granted.

Singh added that even today two seats in the OBC Category are lying vacant.

Justice Palli held that even though DU may be justified in urging that since the admission process had to be finalized before December 31 and all the shortlisted candidates were required to produce their certificates at the time of admission, what was important was that the students were given only four hours to upload all their certificates. Besides, the fact that no undertaking will be accepted in this round was also brought to their knowledge only on the same day.

“In their eagerness to complete the admission process by December 31, 2021, the respondent has just brushed this vital factor that the shortlisted students were granted only four hours to upload their documents and that too without having been earlier put to notice that no undertakings would be accepted,” bench said.

Justice Palli was of the opinion that at least some reasonable time ought to have been granted to the students like the petitioner to produce their documents especially when they had already applied for issuance of a renewed certificate.

“In facts of the present case, the manner in which the respondent had given barely 4 hours to the students to upload all their documents and have let two precious seats reserved for OBC candidates go waste, I have no hesitation in holding that the action of the respondent in not approving the petitioner’s admission was arbitrary and wholly unsustainable,” the bench ruled.

Though at the first blush, the respondent’s objection to granting any relief to the petitioner at this stage appears attractive when considered in the light of the peculiar facts of this case, the respondent’s objection deserves to be rejected. The petitioner has been before this Court from January 25, 2022, when the academic session had just begun. The matter had to be adjourned from time to time on account of various unavoidable reasons including time being granted on a number of occasions to the learned counsel for the respondent to obtain instructions and to file a counter-affidavit, court noted.

Therefore, the court ordered that the petitioner be granted admission into the three year LLM course and as for the exams of the first semester that are already underway, the petitioner will be permitted to appear in the same along with the exams for subsequent semesters as per the practice being followed by the University.

“In case the petitioner is required to attend any additional classes, the respondent will issue appropriate instructions in this regard which the petitioner will be required to follow,” court added.

Case Title: Ashutosh Singh v. University of Delhi