The Delhi High Court on Tuesday granted relief to five students challenging the rejection of their nomination papers for two colleges in the Delhi University Students' Union elections 2026-2027.

Justice Amit Bansal allowed the candidates to appear for various posts in the elections conducted for Campus Law Centre and Sri Guru Gobind Singh College of Commerce.

During the hearing, the Court orally remarked in one of the petitions that the college should be large hearted in such matters.

Petitioners contesting for CLC College Elections

The petitioners, Kanhaiya Ranjan and Shashank Yadav, contesting for the post of Vice President, alleged that their candidature was disallowed over an inadvertent interchange of their names and their fathers' names in the prescribed surety bond.

They sought a direction to the Campus Law Centre and other election authorities to allow them an opportunity to rectify and resubmit the surety bond and accept their nomination papers for the elections.

The petition contends that the mistake was merely clerical and inadvertent and did not affect the identity or eligibility of the candidates.

Advocate Apar Gupta appearing for the candidates argued that the nomination papers were filed and accepted on September 10 but later, the same day, the college authorities raised objection that their surety bonds were erroneous as they had mentioned their own names in place of their fathers'.

Gupta argued that it was a clerical error and had it been pointed out to the petitioners on the same day, they would have rectified it immediately.

Advocate Mohinder Rupal appearing for the Delhi University said that the final list of candidates has been published on September 13. He said that there will be administrative difficulties in making changes to data of final list of candidates already fed in the EVM machines.

Granting relief to the petitioners, the Court noted that a coordinate bench, in a similar case, had allowed the petition last year and the candidates were permitted to file correct surety bonds and contest the college elections.

Noting that the case was squarely covered by that matter, the Court directed the petitioners to furnish correct surety bonds today before the college authorities by 3 PM, after which they be allowed to contest polls on September 18.

The Court directed CLC to issue a revise list of nominated candidates including names of the petitioners for the post of Vice President. The varsity has also been directed to make appropriate arrangements for including their names in EVMs.

The plea was filed through Advocate Naman Kumar.

Petitioners contesting for Sri Guru Gobind Singh College of Commerce elections

The plea was filed by three candidates who were aggrieved by rejection of their nominations for the post of President, Vide President and General Secretary respectively.

The nominations were rejected on the grounds that they had not filed their Aadhar card and College ID card.

Advocate Piyush Kalra appearing for them said that the documents were not included in the list prescribed for the elections and that the rejection was arbitrary.

The counsel appearing for the college said that an advisory was issued by DU in terms of which candidates had to furnish the two documents. He said that the petitioners did not raise the issue with the college's grievance redressal committee and directly approached the Court for relief.

The Court perused the notice issued by the college on September 08 providing list of documents and said that there was no requirement for the candidates to furnish aadhar card or college id.

The Court said that it is not the case of the college that the petitioners were not bona fide students or did not have Aadhar card.

“If there was any such requirement, during the scrutiny process, the same should have been informed to the petitioners. The candidature of the candidates cannot be rejected at the subsequent stage on account of absence of these documents,” the Court said while allowing the plea and directing the petitioners to furnish the said documents to the college authorities today by 3 PM.

Title: Kanhaiya Ranjan and Anr v. Campus Law Centre & Ors & other connected matters