The Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) on Tuesday informed the Delhi High Court that its method of allocation of seats for disabled did not achieve the mandate of 5% reservation provided under the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act.
Reacting to the submission, a Bench of Chief Justice D.N. Patel and Justice Prateek Jalan said: “You cannot juggle your allocation of seats in such a way that you achieve only 4 or 4.5% reservation for PWD instead of 5% or more. Can you have an administrative allocation which results in not achieving the 5% reservation in admission? If you are not realising the purpose behind the statute, then we have a problem.”
The HC said if JNU allocates seats for disabled persons in courses or centres, where such students do not apply or there are few applications, then the varsity will not realise the 5% reservation provided under the Act.
JNU’s counsel Monika Arora said the issue will be placed before its executive council, which will consider coming up with a better method of allocating seats to ensure 5% quota is met.
The court has posted the case for hearing on November 6, when JNU will indicate how it will ensure that the reservation criteria are met.
