Delhi HC to pass order today on students' plea for admission to St Stephen's College

NEW DELHI: The Delhi High Court will pronounce today its verdict on a plea by six students seeking admission to Delhi University's St Stephen's College based on the allocation of seats by the university. As per the cause list uploaded on the court's website, Justice Swarana Kanta Sharma, who reserved the order on the petition on Thursday, is scheduled to deliver the verdict at 2:30 pm on Friday.

The six students have sought direction to the college to provide them with one seat each for the courses in which they have qualified for admission. The petitioners submitted that despite being allocated seats by the university in the college for the BA Economics (Hons) and the BA Programme courses, their admissions were not completed within the stipulated timeframe. While the university has supported the petition, it was opposed by the college.

The single-judge bench had earlier granted the relief of provisional admission to the six students while noting that there was no fault of these students who had successfully cleared the CUET exam and other formalities, and despite being meritorious, they were being kept under suspense regarding the fate of their admission.

Single girl child quota

However, the college challenged the order before the division bench, which barred the six students granted provisional admission to St. Stephen's College based on DU's allotment of seats from attending classes till the pendency of the main petition. The candidates have sought admission under the 'single girl child quota', fixed by DU.

The college has contended that admitting a student under the 'single girl child quota is violative of the right to equality before the law. The submission was opposed by the counsel for petitioner students and Delhi University who said this objection was never raised before. As per the university's bulletin for admission information, one seat in each programme of every college is reserved under the 'supernumerary quota for a single girl child'. The parent or guardian (in case parents are deceased) will have to declare that the girl child is the only child of the parents and they have no other male or female child other than the girl child for which the application is being submitted for admissions in the academic session 2024-25, it said.