The Punjab and Haryana high court (HC) has held that educational institutions should try and fill all vacant seats, especially in professional courses.
The bench of justice Suvir Sehgal and justice Rajesh Gaur criticised the opposition for the same from the joint admission committee (JAC) of Panjab University, responsible for admissions to engineering and architecture colleges in Chandigarh, and said that vacant seats not only result in waste of precious national resources, but also amounts to a denial of an opportunity to the students.
Three students had reached court, stating that they are desirous of joining the Bachelor of Architecture (B Arch) course, offered by the Chandigarh College of Architecture (CCA).
They appeared in the Joint Entrance Examination, 2026, conducted by the National Testing Agency (NTA) and had participated in different rounds of counselling conducted by JAC. But they were not successful in securing admission. A special spot counselling was conducted on August 18 for the left-out seats but again, they remained unsuccessful. Later, they came to know that some seats continue to remain vacant and submitted representations on August 18 to grant admission as per the merit.
The UT’s counsel had admitted that there are three vacant seats for B Arch. When the admission process was over, one candidate withdrew after spot-counselling while two seats – one reserved for general, EWS student and another for a general category student – under the home state quota continue to be vacant. Some representations have been received for admission but the JAC decided not to conduct any further round of seat allotment, the counsel stated.
“It is evident from the above reproduced decision taken by JAC that despite the fact that some seats are unfilled, JAC has decided not to conduct further counselling or admission to the vacant seats of the B Arch course. The result would be that some of the seats in one of the most sought-after courses would go to waste,” it observed.
{{/usCountry}}“It is evident from the above reproduced decision taken by JAC that despite the fact that some seats are unfilled, JAC has decided not to conduct further counselling or admission to the vacant seats of the B Arch course. The result would be that some of the seats in one of the most sought-after courses would go to waste,” it observed.
{{/usCountry}}The court referred to various other such judgments in which the HC and the apex court on numerous occasions, had intervened and asserted that seats should not remain vacant.
“A similar situation has arisen in the cases in hand. After all the rounds of counselling have concluded, some seats have fallen vacant. The decision taken by JAC that another round of counselling cannot be held in the above background, cannot be appreciated. Vacant seats not only result in waste of previous national resources, but also amounts to a denial of an opportunity to the students to pursue a professional course of their choice,” it said.
The court underlined that the argument that all the seats had been filled and students have deposited the requisite fee etc., seats have to be treated as consumed.
“…This argument may apply, when it comes to filling up posts in a recruitment process, however, it cannot be extended to deny the admission of meritorious students to professional courses. By taking such a hyper-technical view, the entire future of deserving students cannot be jeopardised. The argument is, therefore, rejected,” it said with a direction to fill in the seats left vacant from the students, who had appeared in the spot counselling, on the basis of merit. The seats shall first be offered to participants of the spot counselling in accordance with merit, it said, asking the JAC to complete the exercise within a week.