NEW DELHI: Following a complaint, University Grants Commission (UGC) has written to Delhi University over alleged violation of the 10% reservation norm for the economically weaker section (EWS) category at Faculty of Law.
The registrar and the acting vice-chancellor of the university have been asked to reply to the letter over the admissions in the academic session 2020-21 for the LLB course at Faculty of Law. The UGC letter is signed by undersecretary Meena Kumari Nirmal.
According to the complaint letter, sent to UGC by a candidate, “There has been a grave violation of fundamental rights of the students/applicants belonging to the EWS category by University of Delhi. In the admission process for the LLB course at Faculty of Law, University of Delhi (2020-21), EWS reservation is not implemented as per Article 15(6), Constitution of India. As a result, DU deducted 172 seats for the EWS category without any reasonable justification.”
The complainant claimed that the university’s Faculty of Law was the only department that did not implement the 10% EWS reservation. In 2019, the university had implemented 15% reservation and, in 2020, the 10% reservation was implemented.
On September 11, the seat matrix for the admission session was published on the official website with 2,888 seats for LLB, out of which 289 were marked for EWS candidates, the letter stated. On November 24, the admission branch of DU issued the admission guidelines, in which total seats, including all categories for LLB course, were mentioned as 2,922 while the EWS category had 117 seats, it pointed out. The information was based on the data submitted by Faculty of Law to the admission branch of the university, the complainant claimed. TOI had highlighted the issue during the admission.
University officials did not respond to calls and messages on the matter. Earlier, the dean of the faculty had said, “Due to a 2018 high court case, the law faculty is required to maintain the status quo. The court case was not in the notice of the university. So when they increased the seats for all other courses, same happened for LLB as well.”