DU accuses St Stephen’s College of exceeding Christian quota
The Delhi University (DU) has accused St Stephen’s College of exceeding the approved quota for Christian candidates in its revised list of seat allocations for the current academic session. According to DU, this has resulted in qualified candidates with appropriate Common University Entrance Test (CUET) scores being unable to secure seats in certain programmes, such as BSc Honours.
Earlier reports by The Tribune highlighted that St Stephen’s College did not process applications for 22 students, including 12 under the ‘single girl child’ quota and around 10 under the unreserved category. This quota, newly introduced by DU this year, was designed to offer additional opportunities.
During its review, DU identified “crucial and alarming aspects” in the college’s list that led to a halt in the allocation process. The public notice issued by DU noted that despite many candidates meeting CUET score requirements, seats remained unfilled in popular programmes like BSc (H) Chemistry and BSc (H) Physics.
The university received a list from St Stephen’s College on August 28, but discovered significant discrepancies during validation. The college Principal has acknowledged these issues.
The revised list submitted on August 31 also showed continued problems, including an over-allocation of seats for Christian candidates in some BA programme combinations. DU is now conducting further validations of this latest list.
Sharing with The Tribune, petitioners challenging the allocation process argue that the seat distribution has unfairly disadvantaged deserving candidates due to administrative errors. They assert that the university’s policies, such as rounding off seat numbers and the allocation of supernumerary quotas, are not being properly implemented.
The High Court is set to hear the case regarding the admission of the six students to St Stephen’s College on Wednesday, which will determine if the college needs to adjust its seat allocations to comply with DU’s guidelines.
