St Stephen’s and Jesus and Mary colleges will be allowed to give 15% weightage to interviews for admissions under the Christian minority quota for the 2023-24 academic year, the Delhi high court ruled in a recent order.
St Stephen’s had challenged the decision of the Executive Council of the Delhi University (DU) and a University Grants Commission (UGC) notification issued on December 30, 2022 that insisted that all colleges should give 100% weightage for Common University Entrance Test (CUET) scores, even for minority quota admissions.
According to Bar and Bench, the division Bench of Chief Justice Satish Chandra Sharma and Justice Subramonium Prasad passed an interim order on July 21 allowing the college to give weightage to interview of Christian quota candidates. However, the court reiterated it will have to give 100% weightage to CUET scores for admissions under the unreserved category.
The Delhi high court had already passed an order in September 2022 allowing the college to give weightage to interviews for admission of reserved category students. The order was appealled before the Supreme Court, where the matter is pending a decision.
After considering the case, the Bench noted that in its decision of September 2022, it had recognised that it is for the minority institutions to decide what would be best for the minority community. For that purpose, conducting an interview cannot be said to be contrary to the interest of the minority institution, the court said.
According to Bar and Bench, the HC said in its recent order that “allowing the petitioner college to admit students from the minority community by giving 85% weightage to their CUET scores and 15% weightage to their interview, would be best for furthering their interest”. The colleges will be allowed to do so for the 2023-24 academic year.
The bench said that there was “a complete lack of reasoning as to why the ]revious] judgment of this court has been given a go-by by the respondents (DU and UGC) and indicates non-application of mind on their part”.