Relief for Chhattisgarh girl; Bombay High Court asks varsity to admit her under quota for J&K students

Mumbai: The Bombay High Court directed Mumbai University to admit a Chhattisgarh student under the supernumerary quota reserved for students from Jammu and Kashmir after she failed to secure admission due to an accident.

The girl could not secure admission as she failed to attend the counselling session held by the university's 's Centre for Excellence in Basic Science (CEBS). In her plea, she said she had met with an accident two days prior and was unable to walk.

A division bench of Justices G S Kulkarni and Somasekhar Sundaresan, in its order of September 12, said Lamya Khurshid Siddiqui has an excellent academic record and had scored 98 per cent in the national level entrance test conducted for this course.

It would be necessary to recognize the petitioner's merit and redress the discrimination being suffered by her and not let her opportunity to secure admission to the court suffer for the sheer inability to attend an in-person meeting, the HC observed.

"We do not think the sheer inability to participate in such a verification process in an extraordinary situation should be permitted to inflict grievous harm to a bright student's academic prospects," it said.

The bench took note of the fact that two other students who had informed the institute of their inability to attend the session due to medical issues were permitted to send a representative with all necessary documents and they were given provisional admission.

Noting that the petitioner has suffered an apparent injustice solely due to her inability to attend the counselling session, the bench said it was persuaded to grant relief on the basic consideration that the two supernumerary seats would remain unutilized.

Then the merit of the petitioner would be a casualty, the HC bench said.

"Thus, recognizing that the right to education being not only a statutory right but also a right that leads to the enjoyment of the right to life under Article 21, without creating any precedent since this is a peculiar set of facts, it would be appropriate to utilize one of the two un-utilized supernumerary seats to accommodate the petitioner," the court said.

The court noted that the petitioner after completion of her 12th standard exams registered National Entrance Screening Test for admission into the five-year integrated Master of Science course conducted by National Institute of Science Education and Research, Bhubaneswar (NISER) and The Centre for Excellence in Basic Sciences, Mumbai (CEBS).

She secured an all-India rank of 491, thereby, qualifying for the course. The petitioner could not secure admission to the NISER.

In August, she received an email from the CEBS inviting her to attend an admission counselling, which the petitioner accepted.

However, two days before the scheduled counselling session, the petitioner met with an accident rendering her unable to walk.

A week later, the girl wrote to CEBS seeking an alternate counselling session since the admission process was still on. But the request was refused by the CEBS.

In her plea, she sought a direction to the CEBS to reconsider her application for admission, particularly since those with lower rank than her had been admitted.

The CEBS submitted to HC that the admission process was over, with only two seats reserved under the supernumerary quota earmarked for students from Jammu and Kashmir remaining vacant.

The institute said accommodating the petitioner in one of these two seats would cause prejudice to other students who have not approached the court.

The bench, however, noted that the law does not protect the indolent but does protect the vigilant.

It said the petitioner was conscious of her entitlement to knock the doors of the court for protection of her fundamental rights.

The court directed CEBS to grant the petitioner admission and complete all procedural formalities expeditiously.