HC Seeks Delhi University's Response on plea to fill vacant seats in LLB course

New Delhi [India], October 1 : The Delhi High Court on Tuesday sought a response from Delhi University (DU) in a plea filed by two LLB aspirants seeking admission. The students claim that despite the conclusion of the admission process, there are still vacant seats available.
Justice Purushaindra Kumar Kaurav issued a notice to the University and has sought a response on the petition. The matter has been listed for hearing on November 5.
The petitioners, Sumit Kumar Singh and Anany Rathore, moved Delhi HC through Advocates Shakti Pandey and Gaurav Arora. They have sought a direction to the university to fill the vacant seats in LLB programme.
They have also sought a direction that the university reserve two seats for them during the pendency of the petition.
They also sought a direction to the university to reserve two seats for them during pendency of petition.
The petition states that both students are meritorious candidates, appeared for the Common University Entrance Test (CUET (PG) 2024)) conducted by the National Testing Agency on March 13, 2024. Each secured a score of 176 marks in the "General (LLB, etc.)".
It is alleged that despite meeting the cutoff criteria and the availability of vacant seats in all three law centers of the Faculty of Law, the petitioners were unjustly not offered/denied admission.
The University of Delhi conducted four rounds of spot admissions, with the last round (Round-IV) having cutoffs of 177 for Campus Law Centre and 176 for Law Centre I and Law Centre II.
The petitioners, with their scores of 176, clearly met the cutoff for Law Centre I and Law Centre II, yet they were arbitrarily excluded from the admission process and not offered seats, the plea said.
The petition also mentions that the petitioners approached the grievance redressal cell of the university multiple times, highlighting the non-allocation of seats to them despite meeting the cutoff marks and raising other pertinent issues that required immediate redressal. However, their pleas were ignored by the university authorities.
It is further stated that the Delhi University has failed to fulfill its own declared vacancy positions in the various Spot Admission Rounds, thereby denying eligible candidates like the petitioners their rightful opportunity for admission.
According to the data presented in the petition, there is a significant discrepancy between the number of seats declared vacant and the number of admissions actually offered. For instance, Campus Law Centre declared 27 vacant seats in Spot Round-IV but admitted only 23 students, Law Centre-I had 51 vacant seats in Spot Rounds III and IV but admitted only 32 students, and Law Centre-II had 69 vacant seats in Spot Rounds I, II, and III but admitted only 40 students, the plea stated.
This failure to fill declared vacancies, the petitioners argue, is a fundamental breach of the university's duties and a violation of the legitimate expectations of qualified candidates.