Delhi HC reserves verdict on St Stephen’s, DU over seat allocation dispute

The Delhi High Court on Thursday reserved its verdict in the dispute between St Stephen’s College and Delhi University (DU) over seat allocation for the 2023-24 academic session. The court is expected to deliver its decision on Friday.

The case, filed by six aspirants of St Stephen’s College who cleared the Common University Entrance Test (CUET) but were denied admission, has left the students’ fate hanging in balance. The students had approached the High Court on August 22, and while a single-judge bench initially granted them provisional admission, the decision was later stayed by a division bench.

At least five of the six petitioners, accompanied by anxious parents who had travelled from as far as Bengaluru and Punjab, were present in the courtroom of Justice Swarana Kanta Sharma. One parent, who had been stationed in Delhi for over a week, expressed frustration: “We’ve been waiting for clarity, and it has been a stressful time for our children and us.”

St Stephen’s College, represented by senior advocate Romy Chacko, argued that the college was not bound to admit all students allocated through the Common Seat Allocation System (CSAS). Chacko contended, “The college can admit only those candidates who fall within the sanctioned intake capacity.”

He further claimed that in previous years, the DU had compelled the college to admit students beyond its sanctioned capacity. “We had protested back then, but the university insisted on admitting excess students,” Chacko said. He also defended the college’s decision to offer seats to the SC and ST candidates in the non-Christian category, asserting that minority institutions have the right to provide reservations for such candidates in the general category.

Meanwhile, the DU’s counsel, senior advocate Moninder Rupal, argued that the university had been following the seat allocation system for a long time, and St Stephen’s was now challenging it. “The right of admission is not an absolute right,” Rupal stated. “St Stephen’s is a minority institution that enjoys protection to ensure equality with non-minority institutions, but their rights are not higher than that.”