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The Delhi High Court has sought an explanation from Delhi University's St stephen's College on their discriminatory quota, which has further sub divided the Christian community on the basis of the Church one belongs to. Justice Manmohan Singh issued notice to St Stephen's college telling them to explain why there was a sub-classifications among the Christian students itself and why the members of the community who are members of Church of North India (CNI) and Church of North India-Delhi(CNI-D) having a different eligibility criteria for admission against the others who are not members of the Churches. The Court was hearing an application of a student Nikhil Neil Das who secured 89 per cent marks in Class 12 but was not allowed to appear in an admission interview in the college under the Christian quota. Das has applied for admission to BA Economics (Hons) course for the academic year 2011-12. Das's lawyer Ashok Aggrawal told the Court that it was highly discriminatory and objectionable that the college has divided the Christian community into sub-classifications illegally and unconstitutionally set the criteria of admission to benefit candidates having membership in the CNI. Das is not a member of the CNI. The counsel further stated that the college came out with two cut-off lists for the science course-one for applicants who were members of the CNI and the second for those who were not. 'At the time of submitting the application, there was no mention of different cut-offs within the Christian community,' Mr Aggrawal said. The petitioner filed the petition and said 40 per cent seats in the course were reserved for students belonging to the community and he applied under that quota. Despite fulfilling the eligibility criteria, the college denied him admission, which is 'arbitrary, discriminatory and unconstitutional', he alleged. The petition filed under article 226 of the Constitution saying that he being a Christian and having the required marks should be given admission in the college as per reserved quota meant for the community members without any further classification. 'The cut-off prescribed for the Science students in the best of four subjects are: Christian (Others) : 90.5 per cent CNI & CNI-D : 81.5 per cent,' Mr Aggrawal contended. 'There is wide difference of nine per cent between the qualifying percentage for admissions of ordinary Christians and the Christians who belong to North India Church college,' Mr Aggrawal said and added despite his client having the eligible marks he is not allowed to attend the interview. |
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| SOURCE: UNI |
