Delhi High Court rules in favour of DU in dispute with St. Stephen’s College over seat matrix

The Delhi High Court recently upheld Delhi University’s (DU) decision to allocate 5 percent extra students to St. Stephen’s College in the initial rounds of counselling [Hargun Singh Ahluwali & Ors v Delhi University & Ors]..Excess candidates are allotted in the initial admissions rounds because many students opt for other colleges at later stages after securing admission to one college.Justice Swarana Kanta Sharma rejected St. Stephen’s arguments against the DU’s decision and held that in previous years, the college had agreed to the policy of allocating 20 percent extra students in the initial rounds of counseling and this year the number was only 5 percent.“This Court finds that the College itself has been consistently following this policy for the last three years, including in the present academic year, without raising any objection or challenging the same in a Court of law. Having accepted and applied this policy, the College cannot now challenge its validity in these proceedings, particularly when the students have been allocated to the College as per the provisions of CSAS (UG)-2024,” the Court said..The Bench ruled that in determining the 5% extra seat allocations, fractions below 0.5 should be rounded off to the higher site. The decision means that if 5% of total seats results in fractions like 1.2, 1.3 or 1.4, the number of seats should be rounded up to 2.“In this Court’s view, the interpretation of beneficial policies must align with the intent behind them and cannot result in a reduction below the prescribed 5% extra intake. If the respondent college insists on a rigid mathematical approach, arguing that fractions such as 0.5 or 0.4 should be ignored and treated as 0 in the context of seat allotments, it would defeat the very purpose of the policy introduced by the Delhi University,” the Bench said.Further, the Court added that multiple BA Program courses offered by the college should be treated as different programs for seat allocation.It was the college’s argument that these are not different programs but a single course with different combinations of subjects.Justice Sharma also refused to declare the DU’s policy of reservation for single girl children. The Court said that the policy cannot be termed illegal or arbitrary..The Court returned these findings while dealing with a plea filed by seven students challenging St. Stephen’s decision not to grant them admission even though the DU had allocated seats to them in the College.The college argued that the DU was allocating them more students than the permissible intake..The Court directed St. Stephen’s to grant admission to the students..Further, the Court ordered that in the future, the colleges having issues with the seat matrix must send their grievances to the University at least three months before the initiation of the new academic session.“The representation so made will be decided by the University within two months from the date of receipt of such representation by holding meetings etc. as deemed appropriate. This will ensure that the students do not face any problem in attending their classes, and such grievance resolution at an early stage will ensure that the colleges are also able to run their administration and classes without any need to run to the Court.”.Senior Advocate Rishi Malhotra with advocates Ravinder Singh, Raveesha Gupta, Ansuiya, Ritvik Bhardwaj and Shivansh Maini appeared for the students.Delhi University was represented by advocates Mohinder JS Rupal and Hardik Rupal.Advocates Sanjay Khanna, Pragya Bhushan, Karandeep Singh and Tarandeep Singh appeared for the National Testing Agency.St Stephen’s was represented by Senior Advocates Romy Chacko and A Mariarputham along with advocates Varun Mudgal, Kartik Venu, Himani Sharma, Akshat Singh and Sachin Singh Dalal..[Read Judgement]