Candidate Cannot Be Faulted Due To Confusion In Admission Terms: Bombay HC

The Bombay High Court observed that a candidate cannot be held accountable for any confusion regarding admission terms in the LL.B. 5-year course.

The Court allowed the Petition and directed Respondents to issue a Permanent Registration Number and to regularize the admission to a 5-year LL.B degree course from the academic year 2020- 2021.

The Court noted that the petitioner exceeded the minimum eligibility criterion with a 60% score in her I.B. course despite inconsistencies in admission terms.

The Bench comprising Justice A. S. Chandurkar and Justice Jitendra Jain observed, “diploma with 24 points be considered for eligibility for law course, whereas at the end it states that for admission purposes the colleges should take into consideration percentage of best of 5 subjects. Therefore even on this count there appears to be a contradiction in terms and the Petitioner cannot be faulted since she has already crossed the eligibility criteria of minimum 45% marks by obtaining 60% marks in her I.B. course”.

Advocate Anita Castelino appeared for the Petitioner and Government Pleader P. H. Kantharia appeared for the State.

The Petitioner sought to challenge communications from the university declaring her ineligible for a 5-year LLB course. She cleared her International Baccalaureate (I.B.) in 2020 and applied for the course. Despite being provisionally admitted, the university later deemed her ineligible due to credit point requirements.

The Court had noted that the admission process for the LL.B. 5-year course began with the State CET and the Information Brochure for Centralised Admission Process (CAP). The Petitioner, a Maharashtra State Candidate, had met the eligibility criteria outlined in Part A of Paragraph 7.2, which required a minimum of 45% marks in aggregate for the General Open Category in Maharashtra. Additionally, eligibility extended to applicants from various schooling systems, with no requirement to consider the grade point of the International Baccalaureate (I.B.). As the Petitioner had obtained 60% marks in her 10+2 equivalent I.B. course, she had satisfied the eligibility criteria for admission to the LLB 5-year course.

The Bench observed that the eligibility criteria outlined in the Notification of Respondent No.1 dated 8th October 2020 mirrored that of the brochure issued by the same respondent, negating any necessity to consider the grade point from the I.B. Course.

Additionally, the Court noted the petitioner's score of 77 out of 150 marks, validating her eligibility for admission to the LLB course based on the Information Brochure. The petitioner's application form had indicated her completion of the HSC equivalent in the science stream from the I.B. Board, scoring 59.83%, surpassing the minimum requirement of 45% specified in the brochure. The provisional allotment letter from Respondent No.1-CET Cell, assigning a seat to the petitioner at Respondent No.4-College, had been subject to document verification, which had revealed no discrepancies between the uploaded and original documents. On 12th August 2021, Respondent No.1 had certified the admission of the petitioner to Respondent No. 4 - College for the LLB course.

The Bench observed that Respondent No.2, through a letter dated 3rd December 2021, had notified Respondent No.4-College that the petitioner had been deemed ineligible for the 3-year LLB course due to purportedly insufficient credit points, as per an I.B. Circular requiring 24 credit points, whereas the petitioner had only 22.

The Bench noted that this communication, initially addressed for the 3-year LLB course, had later been amended to refer to the 5-year LLB course, suggesting an oversight on the part of Respondent No.2. However, this belated notification, received almost five months after the commencement of the course, had suggested a lack of diligence on the part of Respondent No.2, particularly considering that the petitioner's enrollment form had been submitted to Respondent No.2 on 15th July 2021.

The Court had observed that the delay in informing about the petitioner's ineligibility, attributed to workload, had been deemed unjustified, especially since the petitioner's admission had already been processed by Respondent No.1, and the course had commenced. This failure to communicate the ineligibility earlier, either during the CET Exam application or at the time of seat allotment, or to identify any discrepancies in submitted documents, had rendered Respondent No.2's actions unjustifiable.

Furthermore, the Court noted that the Admission Regulating Authority had approved the provisional admission of the petitioner on 16th December 2021, confirming that all documents had been scrutinized electronically and physically without finding any discrepancies. This approval did not mention any condition for cancellation due to eligibility interpretation issues. Respondent No.2 had informed the petitioner for the first time on 4th April 2022 about an equivalence policy by AIU for the I.B. Diploma Course, requiring a minimum of 24 credits, which had not been specified in the Information Brochure.

The Bench observed that lack of clarity and contradiction between different documents could not be attributed to the petitioner's fault, especially considering she had met the percentage criteria specified in the Information Brochure. Additionally, the AIU brochure had explicitly stated that law courses were outside its purview, further adding to the confusion. Therefore, it would have been unjust to deem the petitioner ineligible based on this confusion, especially when she had relied on the Information Brochure provided by the State CET.

The Court noted that Respondent Nos.2 and 3 had mentioned in their reply that the petitioner had lacked a prima facie eligibility letter from the Eligibility and Migration Section, but this had not been the initial reason for declaring her ineligible. The Bench had established that reasons could not be improvised through subsequent affidavits; eligibility had to be evaluated based on the communicated grounds.

Additionally, the Bench observed that Respondent No.4 had confirmed that such a certificate had been requested. The I.B. brochure attached to Respondent Nos.2 and 3's affidavit had indicated that Indian universities prioritized percentage transcripts over credit scores. The conversion of grades to percentages had been crucial for admission to Indian universities, as reflected in the State CET Information Brochure, which had specified minimum percentage marks required. Respondent No.2's Circular of 20th August 2014 had suggested considering percentages rather than score points for admission purposes, adding to the contradiction regarding eligibility criteria. Despite these inconsistencies, the petitioner had exceeded the minimum eligibility criterion with a 60% score in her I.B. course.

Hence, Respondent Nos.2 and 3 had been unjustified in deeming her ineligible for the 5-year LL.B course.

Accordingly, the Court allowed the Petition and directed Respondent Nos. 2, 3 and 4 to issue a Permanent Registration Number and to regularize the admission to a 5-year LL.B degree course from the academic year 2020- 2021.

Cause Title: Anoushka Tusharkumar Desai v State of Maharashtra (2024:BHC-OS:2146-DB)

Appearance:

Petitioner: Advocates Anita Castelino, Namrata Agashe, Sudha Dwivedi, Vinsha Acharya and Ranjit Agaste

Respondents: Government Pleader P. H. Kantharia, Additional Government Pleader Abhay L. Patki, Advocates Gaurav Sharma, Ashutosh Kulkarni and Swaraj Jadhav

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