LL.B. Courses and Legal Aspects Around Admissions to LL.B. Courses

 LL.B. Courses and Legal Aspects Around Admissions to LL.B. Courses

An interesting judgment was passed on 18 December 2018. 

In Saumya Chopra v University of Delhi [2018] GCtR 3183 (Delhi) issue was related to admission to a Post Graduate Course in the University and, with the grant of a second opportunity to candidates who had figured in the first Three Admission Lists, by including their names in the Fourth and Fifth Admission Lists.

The case of the petitioners, in that batch of petitions was that,  had the candidates, whose names figured in the first three Admission Lists but who did not turn up for securing admission/counseling, not been granted a second opportunity, they would invariably have secured admission to the PG Course. 

It was noted thus : - 

"The attack, by the petitioners, to the impugned decision of the University, is founded principally on the contention that, in calling, for the fourth and for part of the fifth counselling, students who had been included in the first three Admission Lists, but who had failed to turn up for counselling, the University acted in violation of the Clause, contained in its Admission Bulletin, extracted in para 2 hereinabove."

"Insofar as the “Disclaimer Clause”, contained in the Admission Bulletin, is concerned, it empowers the University to “suitably modify, update or delete any part of the Bulletin without any prior notice”." 

"The Notice issued by the University after the third Admission List, granting a “last opportunity to those students who were unable to report earlier” is, quite clearly, not a modification, but is, rather, an infraction, of Clause (iii) of the Admission Bulletin. It can hardly lie in the mouth of the University to argue that, by violating the Clause contained in its Bulletin, the Clause itself stood modified. Neither could the University seek to contend that it could modify the Clause by violating it. It might, perhaps, have been open, to the University, to modify the said Clause, by invoking the afore-extracted "Disclaimer Clause" contained in the Admission Bulletin. That, however, has not happened; instead, the University chose, with impunity, to violate the above-mentioned Clause (iii), by inviting, once again, students whose names figured in the first three Admission Lists, and who had not turned up for counselling." 

"The submission that this was necessitated owing to exigencies in which the said students may have been placed, is neither here nor there, depending, as it does, on imponderables, for its acceptance."

"The act of the University in inviting, for its fourth and fifth counselling, candidates who had not shown up, despite their names having figured in the first three Admission Lists, has to be held as illegal and arbitrary, and starkly violative of Clause (iii) of its own Admission Bulletin. The University would necessarily have, therefore, revisit the said decision. At the same time, it would not be in the interests of anyone – far less, in the interests of justice – to direct the entire exercise of fourth and fifth counselling to be held afresh. Neither would it be in the interests of justice to interfere with the admissions of the students who had not shown up consequent to the first three Admission Lists, despite their names having figured therein, and who obtained admission pursuant to the fourth or the fifth Admission Lists. These students cannot be faulted for having responded to the Notice put up by the University, even if the Notice were, ex facie, contrary to the Admission Bulletin." 

Written by 

Vishal

Delhi

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