The court emphasized the need for administrative flexibility in educational admissions, stating a minor error should not lead to denial of opportunities. Timely rectification of the error weighed heavily in favor of granting admission despite procedural issues.

JUDGMENT

1. The present writ petition concerns the petitioner's application for admission to the MBA (International Business/Human Resource Development) Programme [hereinafter, "MBA (IB)"] in the Delhi School of Economics, University of Delhi [hereinafter, "the University"] in the academic year 2020-21.

Facts

2. The petitioner appeared for the Common Admission Test (CAT), and applied for admission to the MBA (IB) programme in the Department of Commerce, Faculty of Commerce and Business, Delhi School of Economics, University of Delhi, for the academic year 2020-21. He was provisionally selected in the OBC Category in the 8th Admission List.

3. This was communicated to the petitioner by an e-mail dated 02.08.2020, which further required submission of documents by email to the e-mail address "mbadmission@commerce.du.ac.in". The said communication also stipulated a deadline with regard to the submission of the documents, which was as follows:

"...

...

You are required to send your documents during the period from: 2nd August,2020 to 4th August,2020 between 10:00 AM to 4:00 PM(Documents sent after the stipulated time shall not be considered without any further communication)."

4. It is the petitioner's case that he is a resident of Uttar Pradesh and the Government of Uttar Pradesh had issued directives for a curfew in the State over the weekends. As no movement was permitted, he faced some difficulty in arranging all the necessary documents and scanning them. However, on 04.08.2020 at 10:58 AM, the petitioner successfully submitted all his documents on "mbaadmission@commerce.du.ac.in", not realizing that it was, in fact, an incorrect e-mail address.

5. Later in the day on 04.08.2020, it came to the knowledge of the petitioner from various other similarly placed candidates that, after successful submission of the documents, a payment link was sent to the eligible candidates. The petitioner raised a query to the University [on the correct e-mail address - mbadmission@commerce.du.ac.in] vide e-mail dated 04.08.2020 at 7:59 PM, stating that he has mailed the necessary documents but had not received the payment link. He received the following response from the University on 04.08.2020 at 8:43 PM:

"We have recieved only a query from your side which was duly replied but have NOT recieved the documents required for admission therefore you have not got any mail.

Also, you are requested to send us proof that you have send the required documents on this email ID for us to take up the matter.

Warm Regards

MBA Admissions Team

Department of Commerce

Faculty of Commerce and Business

University of Delhi

Delhi

[Quoted text hidden]"

6. The petitioner thus discovered that the documents submitted by him were inadvertently sent to an incorrect e-mail address, which differed from the one provided by the University in the communication of 02.08.2020. At 9:15 PM on the same day, he sent an e-mail to the University at the correct e-mail address, and attached all his scanned documents.

7. The petitioner again wrote to the University on 04.08.2020 at 9:19 PM, apologizing for his mistake and attaching with the e-mail, a screenshot of the earlier email, as required by the University.

8. Further to the above, on 05.08.2020 at 12:21 PM, the petitioner explained his case to the University and requested for a payment link. The said communication is reproduced as follows:

"Respected SIR/MAM

We have a weekend lockdown here in U.P..I received the mail on 2nd of Aug, which was Sunday,so I couldnt get the documents scanned that day.

Next day being Rakshabandan, most of the shops wer