St Stephen's College permitted to grant admission to minority students on 85% CUET and 15% interview scores

The Delhi High Court has allowed St Stephen's College to give 85 percent weightage to CUET scores and remaining 15 percent to marks attained in the interview for Christian minority students seeking admission in the undergraduate courses. The students of non reserved category would be granted admission wholly on the basis of their CUET scores.

New Delhi: St Stephen's College will conduct admission in the undergraduate courses on the basis of 85 percent Common University Entrance Test (CUET) scores and 15 percent interview marks for the Christian minority students. For the non-minority students, admission will be solely based on their CUET scores.

An interim order in this regard was passed by the Delhi High Court's division bench of Chief Justice Satish Chandra Sharma and Justice Subramaniam Prasad. The court said the arrangement would be an interim measure and the admissions would be subject to the final outcome of St. Stephen's petition challenging Delhi University's decision of giving 100 per cent weightage to CUET scores for admission under minority quota. The court said that as an interim measure, it has allowed the admission policy that it had passed last year for being followed for the academic session 2023-24.

Since last year, admission in all colleges under Delhi University is based on CUET scores. St Stephen's had moved court against the university. Notably, St Stephens challenged the decision of the executive council of Delhi University on December 8, 2022 and a notification issued on December 30, 2022, termed the university's directive as "out of jurisdiction" and "unconstitutional".

Granting interim relief, the bench gave approval to the admission policy laid down by it in its judgement dated September 12, 2022, which held that St. Stephen's College reserves its right to conduct interview in addition to CUET for admission of candidates belonging to minority community.

The court further stated that after considering the minutes of the DU Executive Council meeting on December 8, 2022 and the notification dated December 30,2022, there seems to be "complete lack of reasoning". The court mentioned that there is an indication of non-application of mind on the part of the respondents while taking controversial decisions. The court directed St. Stephen's to go ahead with the admission process and prepare its list of candidates on time.