DU doubles down on Stephen’s against interviews: Says CUET makes rationale redundant, interview will lead to discrimination

The Delhi University (DU) has doubled down on its directions to St Stephen’s College to do away with interviews for admissions to its general seats, stating that the rationale for interviews has become redundant with the introduction of Common University Entrance Test (CUET) and it will only introduce subjectivity to a standardised process, eventually leading to discrimination.

The university also reiterated that it will not recognise admissions conducted in violation of its policies and consider them null and void. “Prolonging the discussion in this matter any further shall be antithetic to the smooth and timely conduct of admissions and would unnecessarily lead to confusion and inconvenience to the candidates seeking admission, which can simply be avoided,” it communicated to the college.

The DU and Stephen’s have locked horns over the admission procedure with the latter insisting on continuing with 15 per cent weightage to interviews for admissions to all seats at the college level while the university has been repeatedly asking it admit students to its general seats based solely on the CUET scores.

The college has already released its prospectus for 2022-2023 admissions stating that admissions to open seats will be conducted giving 85 per cent weightage to CUET score and 15 per cent to interview.

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In its communications with the university, the college maintained that it has the right to follow its admission policy as a minority institution and referred to the 1992 Supreme Court judgement which allowed it to go ahead with its interview system.

In a reply letter to St Stephen’s principal John Varghese on Monday morning, DU registrar Vikas Gupta wrote that the judgement of the Supreme Court has to be “read in the light of the facts and circumstances” of that case and stated that the judgement was passed in the context of admissions conducted through qualifying examination marks of “different institutions of different standards”.

“… the judgement has no direct relevance in the changed facts and circumstances as the admissions are going to be done based on the merit obtained by applicants through one standardised, equitable, fair, transparent, nationalised common entrance test (CUET-UG)… You would appreciate that adding a score based on an interview to the score which has already been obtained through a standardised statistically robust procedure would introduce subjectivity in the admission process and eventually lead to discrimination, which is not desirable,” he wrote.

Gupta also referred to a subsequent judgement by a Constitution bench of the Supreme Court in TMA Pai v State of Karnataka, which stated “… the admissions to aided institutions, whether awarded to minority or non-minority students, cannot be at the absolutely sweet will and pleasure of the management of minority educational institutions”.

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