ST STEPHEN’S TO FOLLOW CUET FOR ENTRIES: SC IN SYNC WITH HC

The Supreme Court on Wednesday rejected a plea by St Stephen’s College to suspend a judgment which restrained the college from conducting interviews for non-minority students in addition to considering their Common University Entrance Test (CUET) scores.

The bench said that substantial questions of law pertaining to rights of a minority institution with respect to admitting students of their choice can be examined at a later stage, but there is no valid ground to stay the operation of the high court judgment.

“We find no reason to stay the impugned judgment (of the Delhi high court). The application for interim relief is dismissed,” ordered a bench of justices Ajay Rastogi and CT Ravikumar.

“The action to be taken pursuant to admission process shall be subject to the final outcome of the petition,” added the bench in its order, asking the lawyers for both sides to submit legal issues that would require deliberation when the matter is heard at length.

St Stephen’s college challenged in the Supreme Court a September 12 Delhi high court order that asked it to follow Delhi University’s admission policy and take in undergraduate students in the non-minority category solely on the basis of CUET scores. The college, however, wanted to also conduct interviews for the students from the general category. The high court, however, gave the college a liberty to conduct interviews for the Christian students, if it so desired.

Senior advocate Kapil Sibal, representing the college, bore down that right to administer a minority institution under Article 30 of the Constitution shall include the right to admit students of its choice. “We are not discarding merit at all. We will draw the students from CUET pool only but after that, the college must get to exercise its discretion as to who it should select...,” contended Sibal.

Countering his submissions, solicitor general Tushar Mehta, appearing for the Delhi University, argued that the entire purpose of CUET to have uniformity will be frustrated if one particular college (St Stephen’s) is allowed to have interviews in addition to CUET scores.