New Delhi: The Delhi High Court has directed the authorities to admit a student to the Electronics and VLSI Engineering (EVE) branch at IIIT-Delhi, observing that she should have been offered the seat during the upgradation process before it was made available for spot-round counselling.
Justice Jasmeet Singh passed the direction while disposing of a petition filed by Lavanya Deswal, who challenged the Joint Admission Committee (JAC), Delhi's failure to consider her for the EVE branch despite vacancies being available.
The court noted that Deswal had secured an All India Rank of 20,529 in JEE-Mains. She was initially allotted Production and Industrial Engineering at DTU in the second round and was later upgraded to Computer Science and Engineering at IGDTUW in the fifth round.
The dispute arose after the July 19, 2025 upgradation round. The petitioner pointed out that three seats were shown vacant in the EVE branch at IIIT-Delhi for candidates from outside Delhi and argued that she should have been considered for one of the seats before the vacancies were taken to the spot round.
The JAC opposed the plea, maintaining that there was no provision for upgradation during the spot round and that seats at the spot counselling were allotted according to merit to candidates who were present.
The High Court, however, found merit in the petitioner's contention. It observed that before the spot-round counselling took place, the petitioner should have been upgraded to IIIT-Delhi. The court said that if candidates higher in rank had opted for the available seats, those seats would not have remained vacant for the spot round.
During the proceedings, the court also took note of the fact that respondent no. 3, who had earlier been allotted a seat in IIIT-Delhi's EVE branch, had subsequently taken admission at PES University, Bengaluru and given up the IIIT-Delhi seat.
With two EVE seats consequently still available at IIIT-Delhi, the court said there was no reason to deny the petitioner admission.
"The petitioner is a meritorious student and no fault is attributable to her," the court observed.
The court accordingly directed the respondents to take necessary measures to ensure the petitioner's admission to IIIT-Delhi's Electronics and VLSI Engineering (EVE) branch.
The writ petition and pending applications were disposed of. The judgment was pronounced on August 6 and corrected and released on August 10.
The petitioner was represented by advocates Ankit Singh Sinsinwar and Ravi Kumar. The respondents were represented by GNCTD Standing Counsel Avnish Ahlawat and advocate Nitesh Kumar Singh. Advocates Vanshaja Shukla, C Ankeeta Appanna, Madhura Anand Chitnis and Ishit Mahajan appeared for respondent no. 3.
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