There had been a lot of hue and cry about a large number of Kerala Board students securing admissions in the University of Delhi this year. In fact, the controversy blew up so much that a teacher went ahead to call it 'marks jihad'. Now, the Delhi High Court has dismissed a plea by the Delhi University Students' Union (DUSU) challenging the varsity's decision to consider only class 12th marks for the admission of students from the Kerala state board which determines the grades by combining marks of class XI and XII.
A bench of Justices Vipin Sanghi and Jasmeet Singh said the petition was “highly belated” and lacked merit. The court said it cannot pass any order on presumptions and will see if some student from Kerala files a petition with a grievance.
DUSU, in its plea, said it was approaching the high court against the “arbitrary, irrational and unfair conduct” of authorities that have violated the fundamental and legal rights of innumerable students. It said that in terms of the consistent policy, certain state boards including the Directorate of General Education (Higher Secondary Wing), Government of Kerala, gives combined marks of both XI and XII standard on the mark sheets.
The policy explicitly states that to determine grades of students, combined marks from a student when in Classes XI and XII shall be considered, it said. Advocate Ashish Dixit, representing DUSU, said the Delhi University for several years correspondingly incorporated provision in admission bulletin stating that in cases where state boards publish marks of both XI and XII standard, the merit of students shall be determined based on such consolidated mark sheets.
The plea was opposed by Delhi University's counsel M Rupal who raised objection over DUSU's locus standi to file the petition since the association only represents students of Delhi University and not those who have not yet obtained admission.
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He further said the admission bulletin was issued by the varsity in June and the petitioner has approached the court in October which is highly belated. However, Dixit said the issue was first highlighted on October 4, following which they made a representation to the vice-chancellor on October 9 but to date, no decision has been taken.
The plea said that initially, the university directed that such cases be kept on hold, however, within a few hours, the admissions office of DU circulated an email to colleges asserting that the Admission Advisory Committee has decided that only marks from Class XII shall be considered.
