Purpose of quota to inspire OBCs get higher education, authorities' duty to further it: Delhi HC

NEW DELHI: The Delhi High Court on Thursday said the purpose of quota for OBC candidates is to encourage them to fulfil their dream of higher education and the authorities have a duty to further the constitutional goal of providing reservations for them. The remark was made by the court while directing the Delhi University to grant admission to an LLM aspirant who was denied admission for failing to provide the OBC-Non Creamy Layer certificate.

Dealing with the plea by the aspirant, Justice Rekha Palli, said the Delhi University gave the petitioner barely four hours to upload all documents and denying admission on account of the certificate not being of the current financial year was arbitrary and wholly unsustainable. The court opined that when the authorities had previously permitted students to apply for admission based on their earlier OBC-Non Creamy Layer certificate, at least some reasonable time ought to have been granted to the petitioner given that he had already applied for issuance of a renewed certificate.

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"I cannot also lose sight of the fact that the purpose of reservation for OBC candidates is to encourage such students to fulfil their dream to obtain higher education. All the authorities, therefore, have a duty to take such steps in furtherance of this constitutional goal of reservation for OBC candidates," the court stated. "In facts of the present case, the manner in which the respondent had been given barely four hours to the students to upload all their documents and have let two precious seats reserved for OBC candidates go waste, I have no hesitation in holding that the action of the respondent in not approving the petitioner's admission was arbitrary and wholly unsustainable," it added.

Considering that the examinations for the first semester of the course were underway, the court permitted the petitioner to write his examinations along with those for the subsequent semesters as per the practice being followed by the university. "The respondent is directed to forthwith grant admission to the petitioner in the three-year LLM programme for the academic year 2021-22," the High Court ordered.