NEW DELHI: Delhi High Court on Monday refused to interfere in a petition alleging that a “disproportionate” number of students from the Kerala state board are securing admissions in Delhi University. The court dismissed the plea saying fixing of cutoffs was a matter of the university’s admission policy and matters of academic policy were best left to the university.
The court was hearing a petition by a DU aspirant seeking a “scaling mechanism” for marks scored by students from different boards in order to provide a level playing field.
“To me, it is entirely a matter of policy. How do we say what should be fixed as a cutoff ? How do we say so-and-so board marks have been higher and so-and-so have been lower?... I don’t think a court can get into this based on some kind of reverse engineering,” Justice Prateek Jalan observed.
The plea argued that in spite of securing over 98% in Class XII, she was unable to score admission in her preferred course and college. “Take the cookie as it crumbles. We have to accept that. There is no reason to feel disheartened... You will get admission. There are great colleges and universities all over India,” the judge told the petitioner student.
On its part, DU stated that the university cannot assess “which board has been liberal” as part of its admission process. “If more students (of a certain board) score more marks, being a central university, we can’t deprive them.”
