Supreme Court Refuses Interim Relief To St.Stephen's College; No Interviews For Admissions In Non-Minority Category

A bench of Justices Ajay Rastogi and CT Ravikumar has posted the matter for next hear mid-March.

"We find no reason to stay the operation of the judgement. Application for interim relief is dismissed", the order read.

The Bench also clarified that the action which will be taken pursuant to admission process will be subject to final outcome of the petition.

The Court was considering the special leave petition filed by St.Stephen's College against a Delhi High Court order restraining it from conducting interviews for non-Christian applicants. The college has been insisting on following an 85:15 formula for such candidates, with 85 per cent weightage given to the result of the entrance examination [CUET] and 15 per cent to its own interview. The college has cited its status as a minority institution to defend this policy, claiming that it could take autonomous decisions with respect to admissions.

Though, at the start of the hearing, the bench had asked the senior advocates appearing for both sides to confine their arguments to 5 minutes each, the hearing went on for a much longer time.

During the hearing, the Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, appearing for the Delhi University, argued that staying the High Court Judgement would have detrimental effect and would have pan-India repercussions.

"No one (minority college) has questioned till now but they will now', he said.

SG Mehta also argued that the CUET is introduced for the first time, for a common standard of assessment. Under these circumstances, there was no requirement of a separate interview by the College.

"If you trust them with discretion in admitting students of minority quota, why not the same for open category? Why two standards in the same Institution?", the Bench asked.

"They can have their separate system for minority candidates", SG Mehta said.

An advocate appearing for two law students submitted that because of hidden concealed parameters that the college has in the interview, a topper in the CUET exam won't get his course of choice. "Students topping CUET is denied admission because of these hidden parameters. Let merit prevail", he argued.

Senior Advocate Kapil Sibal submitted that in the St. Stephen'S College vs University Of Delhi case decided on 6 December, 1991, the issue was not merit but whether the college could conduct an interview. If yes, how many marks?

Speaking on the purpose of the interview, the senior advocate submitted that it was to find out the personality of the student and not to re-asses him.

"Court is saying we are not reassessing the merit. College looks at the personality etc. That's the limited issue of interview."

Further, it was contended that marks and merit cannot be correlated. "Marks are not merit. Please appreciate. Can't co-relate the two…..You say 15% is too much? I didn't fix 15%, the Court fixed it."

As the New education policy of the government, marks should not be the criteria for admission in colleges, Sibal apprised the Bench.

"I showed it to the Delhi High Court. In foreign countries, they don't only marks.. They interview their candidates, they find out what personality, whether it matches the ethos of the University…."

"Other countries are different. We know the importance of marks", SG Mehta, intervened to say.

"I'm on education, not marks', Sibal shot back.

Further the Bench asked, "If Uniformity is there now, what's the relevance of interview? The marks, if one gets 90%, his mark is reduced as only 85% is taken."

"Its 85% weightage for the CUET marks, Sibal clarified.

"Now there is neck to neck competition. If there are some riders, if people don't know standards. If there's an interview, what is the objective assessment which you keep in mind so that a student knows?", was another question that the Court had asked during the hearing.

Background

The Delhi High Court, while partly allowed two petitions, one filed by St Stephens college and another PIL filed by Konika Poddar, a law student at DU, directed St Stephens college to withdraw its admission prospectus and issue a fresh public notice declaring the amended admission procedure.

The High Court, in its order, observed that the fundamental right under Article 30(1) of Constitution of India accorded to minority institution cannot be extended to non-minority members.

The plea filed by Poddar had challenged the decision of St. Stephen's College to conduct an interview round for admissions to general category for the academic year 2022-23, despite Delhi University's policy doing away with the same.

The Court was of the view that while St Stephens College retains its authority to conduct interviews in addition to the CUET for the admission of students belonging to the minority community, it cannot devise a policy that forces the non-minority community to undergo an interview as well.

At the same time, the Court allowed St.Stephens' plea to quash the University Communication which insisted on a single merit list for admission of candidates belonging to Christian community regardless of any denominations/ sub-sects / sub categories within the Christian community.

Case Title: St. Stephen's College v. University of Delhi & Anr. Etc. [SLP (C) No. 17295-17296/2022]

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