Colleges left worried as 58K minority seats still vacant

were given back to the colleges, thus changing the entire seat matrix.

After the intervention of a few parents and a Mumbai based educational institute, the bench later allowed minority colleges to surrender their in-house quota seats - for students from schools attached to the colleges which added about 7,000 seats to the general category.

The court however gave no relief for minority quota seats. “The current situation is a big blow for meritorious students who are losing out on their welldeserved opportunities for no fault of theirs,” said the principal of a south Mumbai college.

With the next hearing of the court scheduled after more than a week, minority quota seats are most likely to remain inaccessible in the centralised admission process.

The parents of children who want them to get admission into these minority colleges said that the state education department should clear how these seats will be allocated.

“Many students with 90 percent and above marks were waiting to get admission into the minority colleges but couldn’t get a seat because of the new matrix. Now we are scared about admissions to vacant seats being done on first come, first serve basis as that would put those with lower merit into top colleges,” said Pankaj Jain, parent of a FYJC aspirant from Malad.