SC refuses to stay HC order asking St Stephen’s College to follow DU entry policy

The Supreme Court on Wednesday rejected a plea by St Stephen’s College to suspend a judgment which restrained the college from conducting interviews for non-minority students in addition to considering their Common University Entrance Test (CUET) scores

The Supreme Court on Wednesday rejected a plea by St Stephen’s College to suspend a judgment which restrained the college from conducting interviews for non-minority students in addition to considering their Common University Entrance Test (CUET) scores.

The Supreme Court was hearing a plea of St Stephen’s College against a Delhi HC order which asked it to follow the admission policy of the Delhi University) (AP)

The bench said that substantial questions of law pertaining to rights of a minority institution with respect to admitting students of their choice can be examined at a later stage, but there is no valid ground to stay the operation of the high court judgment.

“We find no reason to stay the impugned judgement (of the Delhi high court). The application for interim relief is dismissed,” ordered a bench of justices Ajay Rastogi and CT Ravikumar.

“The action to be taken pursuant to admission process shall be subject to the final outcome of the petition,” added the bench in its order, asking the lawyers for both sides to submit legal issues that would require deliberation when the matter is heard at length.

St Stephen’s college challenged in the Supreme Court a September 12 Delhi high court order that asked it to follow Delhi University’s admission policy and take in undergraduate students in the non-minority category solely on the basis of CUET scores. The college, however, wanted to also conduct interviews for the students from the general category. The high court, however, gave the college a liberty to conduct interviews for the Christian students, if it so desired.

Senior advocate Kapil Sibal, representing the college, bore down that right to administer a minority institution under Article 30 of the Constitution shall include the right to admit students of its choice. He cited the landmark Supreme Court ruling in the TMA Pai case (YEAR) to argue that a minority institution cannot be denuded of its choice through regulation because that would take away the constitutional right under Article 30.

“We are not discarding merit at all. We will draw the students from CUET pool only but after that, the college must get to exercise its discretion as to who it should select... Merit cannot correlate only to marks or we don’t have a choice as a minority institution to select our students,” contended Sibal, adding interviews are conducted to assess compatibility and temperament of the candidates.

Countering his submissions, solicitor general Tushar Mehta, appearing for the Delhi University, argued that the entire purpose of CUET to have uniformity will be frustrated if one particular college (St Stephen’s) is allowed to have interviews in addition to CUET scores. Mehta added that it will be detrimental to meritorious students who would be eliminated due to less scores in interviews although they would have scored high in CUET.

Representing the University Grants Commission (UGC), additional solicitor general Vikramjeet Banerjee pointed out that it had always been in favour of completely doing away with the process of interview for all students, including minority students, to bring about absolute uniformity in the admission process throughout the country.

At one point during the proceedings, the bench wondered if different admission criteria for minority and non-minority students should operate for the same institution and whether DU should have allowed St Stephen’s to have interviews for minority students.

“If you trust their discretion and a leeway of 15% can be given to them for minority students, why can’t the same discretion be given to them for non-minority students? Why to have two standards?” the bench asked SG, who retorted that DU is willing to issue an order on removing the criteria of interview completely.

St Stephen’s has been fighting DU over the admission process following the university’s order to all affiliated colleges to take in students on the basis of CUET scores alone. At St Stephen’s, half the seats are reserved for Christians.

The college has been insisting on giving 85% cent weightage to CUET scores and 15% to its own interview of non-Christian applicants, citing its minority institution status to assert its right to take such decisions independently.

However, through its September order, the Delhi high court ordered the college to issue a fresh prospectus giving 100% weightage to CUET scores while admitting non-minority students to undergraduate courses.

The special rights of the minority institutions cannot be extended to their non-minority students, the high court had emphasised in its order while adding that the college is still free to conduct interviews in addition to the CUET for the admission of students belonging to the minority community.