Legal opinion sought from St Stephen's by DU VC over its 85:15 admission criteria

The St Stephen's College admission issue has taken a legal turn, with Delhi University now seeking a legal opinion on the matter from the college. The university's Vice-Chancellor Yogesh Singh has said that the proposal for the legal opinion was sent to the college on April 25.

The tussle over St Stephen's admission criteria has been going on for some time now. The college has maintained that it will give 85% weightage to CUET (Central Universities Entrance Test) and the remaining 15% weightage will be given to interviews conducted by the college. This rule shall be applicable to all the candidates, the college board has said, despite its decision being countered by the DU administration, as well as the students and faculty members of DU, and also of St Stephen's College itself.

While the DU VC had suggested that the 85:15 formula should be applicable to minority candidates only, as St Stephen's reserves 50% of its seats for minorities, the students wanted the college to scrap the interviews for all students. However, the college remained reluctant to change the criteria. It said that it had the legal right to make a different admission criterion.

After a series of meetings with DU officials, the St Stephen's College had issued an official statement on April 20 that in keeping with the spirit of the constitutional rights guaranteed to the college, there shall be no discrimination between minority and non-minority applicants with respect to the 85:15 formula for admission to the college.

"This is the admission process — time-tested, proven and guaranteed through a landmark judgment delivered by the highest court of the land — that will be followed for admission to college," the college said.