New Delhi: Delhi High Court on Tuesday asked the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) to admit a student whose qualifying exam results were delayed.
Justice Anil Kumar directed the JNU administration to grant admission to the petitioner, Nikhil Jain, in the MA (Political Science) course from 2009-10.
Jain had cleared the JNU entrance test in April 2008 and deposited the fee. But as the result of one of the papers of the qualifying examination was pending, he requested the university to defer his admission to the winter session.
The Delhi-based university had accepted his plea, but when Jain approached it after clearing the qualifying examination, he was denied admission, prompting him to approach the court.
JNU counsel said the student had appeared in one of the supplementary papers for the qualifying exam after Aug 14, 2008, and was thus not eligible for admission.
However, Jain placed on record the certificate from the principal of Sri Aurobindo College stating that he had appeared in all the BA third year exams before Aug 14, 2008 although the result of the supplementary examination was declared after that date.
"The plea of the university that the petitioner had appeared in the qualifying examination of the graduation course after Aug 14, 2008 is based on their own assumption. Merely because the petitioner was placed in the supplementary for one paper of the B.A. course, it could not be assumed by the respondent that the petitioner had not appeared in the papers of qualifying examination prior to the due date," the judge noted while allowing Jain's plea.
"This also cannot be refuted by the university that if a candidate is placed in the supplementary in one of the papers, it cannot be stated that the candidate has failed in the qualifying examination. The decision to cancel the deferred admission on the assumption that the petitioner did not appear in all the papers of qualifying examination prior to the due date is irrational and not based on sound reason - rather no reason has been disclosed," the court said.