New Delhi: The Delhi High Court on Tuesday directed St. Stephen's College, under Delhi University, to maintain the university's standard admission procedure of taking into account only CUET scores when it came to admission in undergraduate courses in unreserved, non-minority seats.
The court, while hearing a plea filed by a law student at the college regarding the legality of the procedure, observed that St Stephen's had the right to conduct an interview in addition to CUET scores for minority candidates, but not for all students.
Moreover, the bench headed by Chief Justice Satish Chandra Sharma said the college further "cannot insist upon a single merit list for admission of candidates belonging to the Christian community regardless of denomination etc."
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"The court is of the opinion that while the petitioner-college retains its authority to conduct interviews in addition to the CUET for the admission of students belonging to the minority community, it cannot devise a policy that forces the non-minority community to undergo an interview as well.
Therefore, the right of the petitioner-college to conduct interviews and accord to them 15 percent weightage for the purpose of admitting students does not extend to non-minority students and solely pertains to its minority students," the bench observed.
The court further noted that Article 30(1) of the Constitution, under which minorities are granted rights to establish and administer educational institutions of their choice, was not absolute and that the state had the right to come up with regulations to govern such institutions as long as it was in the interest of said communities.
