Delhi’s St. Stephens College has made a big argument in the High Court regarding the single girl child quota. St. Stephens College on Wednesday told the Delhi High Court that Delhi University’s policy of admitting a girl student under the ‘single girl child quota’ violates the right to equality. The college’s lawyer said that the quota for girls is a violation of Articles 14, 15(3), 15(5) and 30 of the Constitution and allocating seats under this quota is against these 4 articles.
“Have you ever objected to this before?
During the discussion, Justice Swarn Kanta Sharma asked, “Have you ever objected to this before? Have you ever protested against this policy, or written a letter to them, or filed a case?” In response, senior advocate Romi Chacko said, “This year, they agreed to allot only 5 per cent more seats and appoint one candidate for each programme. However, today we are forced to challenge it because instead of allocating one candidate, they are appointing 13 candidates. If we were asked to admit only one girl, we would have no problem.”
No law on this – College
The college’s advocate argued that there is no law on this and it is only a decision taken by the university. He argued that “Fundamental rights cannot be taken away by executive order. There is no statutory backing for this. All these quotas imposed on us have no statutory backing. So, this particular quota is against Articles 14, 15(3), 15(5) and 30.” He said that the college had agreed to the quota, but now DU is trying to impose something which is against the university bulletin.
The college further said that the university is trying to impose quota against minority institutions. The lawyer said, “All these quotas imposed on us have no statutory backing. Today you are trying to implement something which is beyond the university bulletin.”
Delhi University opposed
However, DU argued that if there are 13 combinations in BA (prog), then 13 girl students have to be admitted,” he said, adding that the state cannot deny equality to any individual. The petitioner students and Delhi University advocate opposed this argument and said that this objection was never raised before.
DU advocate Mohinder Rupal said, “If the college is dissatisfied with this provision, then why did it not challenge the university’s information bulletin for admission?” There are about 7-8 minority colleges under it and only one college has a problem and others have no problem with the allocation of seats. He said that the college should not have played with the career of the petitioner students by denying them admission when their names were already released by the university among the selected candidates for admission in the college. On this, the judge said, “For this I think you (the college) will have to challenge it separately.” The court has listed the case for Thursday to hear arguments on some limited points.
What does DU’s bulletin say?
According to DU’s admission bulletin, one seat in every program of every college is reserved under ‘Additional Quota for Single Girl Child’. For this, just the parent/guardian (if the parent is dead) has to declare that the girl is the only child of the parents.
