Mazagaon college wrongly allots girls' seats to boys

When the first merit list was declared on Friday, Kartik Nair (name changed on request) found that he had made it to the arts stream of Burhani College, Mazagaon.

When the first merit list was declared on Friday, Kartik Nair (name changed on request) found that he had made it to the arts stream of Burhani College, Mazagaon.

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But on Saturday, when he went to the college to secure admission, he was turned away. The reason: he was not a girl. College authorities informed him that they only admitted girls into the arts stream.

“Authorities told us the college has always been a girls’ college for arts,” said Nair’s father. “They said it was the department’s error in allotting boys in the merit list. There were 24 or 25 boys’ names that we saw on the merit list. We do not know what to do now.”

Department officials said Burhani College was listed as a co-educational institute as per the registration form the college had earlier filled.

“We will need to re-check what they filled in at the time of registration,” said a department official. “Students who are facing a problem should approach the department. We will see what we can do to sort it out.”

College authorities said the same error was made last year too. “For the commerce stream we are co-educational, but for arts we have always been a girls’ only college,” said Yusuf Kagalwala, superintendent of the college. “We will now have to report to the department that we have rejected these students.”

Several seats in coveted city colleges are still not allotted, and will open up for the second merit list. Seats set aside for students from different quotas were not allotted because there weren’t enough applications. These quota seats will be converted into open seats in the second general merit list, which will be declared on August 1.