JJ School of Arts student loses seat: HC refuses to condone 2-day delay in submitting Caste Validity Certificate

The division bench of justice Sunil Shukre and justice Firdosh Pooniwalla refused to condone the 2-day delay and on October 11 rejected a petition filed by Akola resident Bhushan Chaudhari, 18, who was provisionally admitted to the prestigious fine arts school on a reserved post subject to the condition that he would furnish caste validity certificate on or before August 14, 2023. His admission was cancelled as he submitted the certificate two days after the cut-off date

Mumbai: The Bombay high court has dismissed a petition filed by a fine arts student whose admission to the state-run JJ School of Arts was cancelled due to a two-day delay in furnishing the Caste Validity Certificate to the institute.

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The division bench of justice Sunil Shukre and justice Firdosh Pooniwalla refused to condone the 2-day delay and on October 11 rejected a petition filed by Akola resident Bhushan Chaudhari, 18, who was provisionally admitted to the prestigious fine arts school on a reserved post subject to the condition that he would furnish caste validity certificate on or before August 14, 2023. His admission was cancelled as he submitted the certificate two days after the cut-off date.

On October 10, the teenager moved to the high court challenging the cancellation of his admission, contending that the Caste Scrutiny Committee concerned issued him a caste validity certificate on 16 August – two days after the cut-off date set by the institute. He contended that his admission was cancelled for no fault on his part, as he had applied to the Committee last year, but it took 10 months to issue him a certificate.

He further stated that the Caste Certificate Rules 2012 mandate that the Committee must decide caste claims within 45 days of their lodging, and he could not be made to suffer because of inordinate delay on the part of the Committee in deciding his claim.

The bench dismissed his petition, observing that the rule regarding 45 days was applicable to the issuance of caste certificate and the 2012 Rules grants five months to the Caste Scrutiny Committees to decide caste claims lodged before them. The bench said since the Rules do not provide any consequence of non-compliance with the time limit, “this provision of law would have to be understood as directory in nature and not mandatory in nature.”

As regards the request for relaxing the deadline, the bench said, “prescription of last dates for doing certain things including submission of Caste Validity Certificates, have their own sanctity, and the rationale is that the admission process must go on smoothly and must not be hindered and halted due to non-submission of necessary documents by students or otherwise, the schedule of the whole academic year of students will go haywire.”

The bench said the admission process comprises several stages and each of the next stages cannot be completed unless the previous stage is over and if an extension for completion of one stage is granted, it is bound to adversely impact the next stage and result in chaos and delay which will ultimately have its cascading effect upon starting of the academic year and eventually the quality of the education.

It added that there may be occasions when provisionally admitted students can produce the Validity Certificates in time and there may not be any fault on their part. “But, if for such a reason, any interference with the time limits and deadlines prescribed in the admission procedure is made by this Court, it would lead to the opening of flood gates,” and if a delay of 2/3 days is condoned, people would start seeking condonation of delays of months.