HC seeks DU’s reply on St. Stephen’s College’s plea over allocation of PG seats

PG seats allocated for academic years prior to the year 2020-21 were higher: plea

The Delhi High Court has asked Delhi University to respond to a plea by St. Stephen’s College alleging “gross discrimination” on the part of the university in the allocation of seats for postgraduate courses to the minority college.

The High Court ordered DU to explain in an affidavit the method by which it allocates PG seats for the colleges under it. The Bench ordered the university to explain the reason for reducing the number of seats for PG courses in St. Stephen’s College for the academic year 2021-22 in comparison to 2020-21.

The order came on a plea by St. Stephen’s College, claiming that the allocation of seats for the college for academic years prior to the year 2020-21 was higher. Although the university filed a counter-affidavit earlier, it did not disclose the mechanism for seat allocation, the High Court said in its July 13 order.

The Bench also said that DU’s previous response does not specifically deal with the allegations of “gross discrimination” levelled against it by St. Stephen’s College. It posted the case for further hearing on August 25.

In addition to the issue of lower number of PG seats, the college has been at loggerheads with DU over its admission criteria for undergraduate courses with either party refusing to back off.

St. Stephen’s College has announced that for the academic year 2022-23, it will conduct an interview for all applicants who have been shortlisted from the Common University Entrance Test (CUET) list and the admissions will be based on 85% weightage to the CUET scores and 15% to interviews, which is contrary to the new admission process announced by DU.

The university, on the other hand, has asked St. Stephen’s College to withdraw its prospectus for the 2022-23 session and issue a public notice declaring revised admission procedures in consonance with the new admission policy of the university.