Inability To Visit Centre Shouldn’t Be Held Against Her: Bombay HC Grants Relief To Student Who Failed To Secure Admission Due To Accident

The Bombay High Court declared a female student entitled for quota as she failed to secure admission into the five-year integrated Master of Science course due to an accident.

The student belonging to Chhattisgarh State had filed a writ petition who had successfully completed the 12th standard with Physics, Chemistry, and Biology as the subject elective.

A Division Bench comprising Justice G.S. Kulkarni and Justice Somasekhar Sundaresan observed, “Since the Petitioner appears to qualify in terms of all other criteria and is being denied admission solely due to non-attendance on August 14, 2024, it is made clear that the Petitioner’s inability to visit CEBS at Mumbai on August 14, 2024 should not be held against her. If the Petitioner otherwise complies with all other requisite substantive criteria and procedural formalities, she is hereby declared to be entitled to admission.”

Advocate Sidharth Samantray appeared on behalf of the petitioner while Advocate Saurabh Pakale appeared on behalf of the respondents.

Facts of the Case -

On May 8, 2024, the petitioner registered for the National Entrance Screening Test (NEST) which is a national level entrance exam conducted for admission into the 5-year integrated Master of Science course, conducted by the National Institute of Science Education and Research (NISER), Bhubaneswar and for the Centre for Excellence in Basic Sciences (CEBS), Mumbai. To appear for the NEST, candidates are required to pass the 12th standard with an aggregate score with an 60% or above. The petitioner had scored 90.2% and on June 30, 2024, she appeared for the NEST exam. The results declared on July 12, 2024 showed the petitioner having secured an all-India rank of 491, thereby qualifying for admission to the course. NISER has 200 seats while CEBS has 57 seats. In the general category, to which the petitioner belonged, the seat capacity is 101 at NISER and 23 at CEBS.

She received an expression of interest from NISER to attend a counselling session scheduled for August 6, 2024. She participated and was placed on the waiting list with a rank of 30. The admissions were closed after absorbing the 25th candidate on the waiting list, and the petitioner could not secure admission. She received an email from CEBS, inviting her to attend an admission counselling on August 14. She confirmed her attendance, however, on August 12, she met with an accident, rendering her unable to walk, necessitating bed rest. On August 22, CEBS replied to the petitioner stating that, “as per existing policy, candidates who did not attend the offline admissions on 14th, can no longer be continued in the admission queue”. Being aggrieved, she was before the High Court.

The High Court in view of the facts and circumstances of the case, directed, “Since the course has just commenced, it would be in the interests of justice to direct that such admission be granted and the procedural formalities should be completed expeditiously, preferably within a period of one week from today, within which period, all other verification and procedural formalities shall be attended to.”

The Court clarified that such direction is being issued in the peculiar facts and circumstances of the case and is not meant to be a precedent either to render the in-person counselling session as dispensable or to allocate the supernumerary seats at will for admission, when un-utilised.

“We are persuaded to grant relief to the Petitioner on the basic consideration that two seats would remain unutilized and would in fact be wasted. In these circumstances the merit of the Petitioner would be a casualty. We hence direct Respondent No. 1 to intimate the UGC of the Petitioner’s admission as directed by us, so that the UGC records the same”, it further ordered.

The Court concluded that the CEBS shall be more elaborate in its description of the in-person ‘counselling session’ to students and in communicating what is expected of students at such session, and also the means to deal with extraordinary circumstances that may emerge if it becomes impossible for a student to attend such session.

Accordingly, the High Court allowed the writ petition.

Cause Title- Lamya Khurshid Siddiqui v. Centre for Excellence in Basic Sciences (CEBS) & Anr. (Neutral Citation: 2024:BHC-OS:14196-DB)

Appearance:

Petitioner: Advocates Sidharth Samantray, Siddharth Shah, and Aniket Mokashi.

Respondents: Advocates Saurabh Pakale, Padmaja Malgoankar, Rui Rodrigues, and Ashutosh Misra.

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