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Supreme Court asks IIT to assist Dalit teen who cracked test
“It is an unfortunate case...He is a Dalit boy. He has aspirations and he is meritorious. For all you know, he could be a leader of the nation 10 years or 20 years down the line,” a bench, headed by justice Dhananjaya Y Chandrachud, told the counsel appearing for IIT-Bombay and the IIT’s seat allocation authority.
Observing that a meritorious Dalit boy can be a leader of the nation in future, the Supreme Court on Thursday asked the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) management to make its best endeavour to accommodate a 17-year-old candidate who lost a seat at IIT-Bombay for failing to make online fee payment in time because of a technical glitch.
“It is an unfortunate case...He is a Dalit boy. He has aspirations and he is meritorious. For all you know, he could be a leader of the nation 10 years or 20 years down the line,” a bench, headed by justice Dhananjaya Y Chandrachud, told the counsel appearing for IIT-Bombay and the IIT’s seat allocation authority.
The bench, which included justice AS Bopanna, took note that the candidate, Prince Jaibir Singh, who secured the 864th rank in the scheduled caste category and was being allotted a seat at the prestigious IIT- Bombay for a BTech course in civil engineering, would not forego the opportunity had it not been for some difficulties in arranging the acceptance fees.
Singh, who is from Ghaziabad in Uttar Pradesh, submitted that although he completed all other formalities on the Joint Seat Allocation Authority ( JoSAA) portal on October 29, he could not make the payment of the seat acceptance fees as he was falling short of money. After his sister transferred the money into his account on October 30, he made several attempts to make the payment online but failed to do so till 12 noon on October 31, which was the deadline, due to technical errors.
Referring to the sequence of events from the petition, the bench remarked: “Who would want to forsake an IIT-Bombay seat? Ultimately, these are problems of resources. We can show him the door on five different grounds in law, like what the high court has done, but let us look at this as a humane problem...beyond legal intricacies,” the bench said, asking IIT’s advocate Sonal Jain to act as an officer of the court to look out for a seat for Singh and come back on Monday.
The court told Jain that it is mindful of the apprehension of the IIT management that there could be a deluge of similar requests and petitions if they agree to Singh’s admission. “Don’t worry. we will protect you. We will say that we are exercising our powers under Article 142 of the Constitution (authority to issue orders to do complete justice) and that this order cannot be used as a precedent in any other case,” added the bench.
As Jain pointed out that all the seats in IIT-Bombay, including those under the reserved quotas, had been filled up, the bench responded: “This is a case where we have to look beyond the law. If it is his destiny, we cannot do anything but let us all try our best. You be the officer of the court and do something.”
Representing Singh, advocate Amol Chitale submitted that Singh is willing to accept a seat in any of the seven zonal IITs, in any stream, and is not pressing for a seat only at IIT-Bombay.
Taking note of this, the bench asked Jain to find out if Singh could be accommodated in any of the seven IITs across the country. “Tell us where seats are available and if he can get a place somewhere. He is meritorious, after all,” it said.
Singh initially moved the Bombay high court, contending that he secured an all-India rank of 25,894 and scheduled caste rank of 864 in the JEE Advanced and was allotted the seat. He said after failing to clear the seat acceptance fees by the deadline, he went to the authorities concerned on November 1, and requested them to allow him to make the payment. But IIT officials expressed their inability to help him.
While Singh urged the court to direct authorities to accept the fees and process his admission, the high court on November 12 declined to give him any relief. The high court held that Singh “has entailed the consequence of rejection” because he failed to register his grievances before the deadline.
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