The court emphasized that adherence to admission cut-off dates should not prevent filling vacant seats and granting admission to qualified candidates when administrative processes fail to be transparent.

JUDGMENT

Rekha Palli, J. (ORAL)--The present petitions have been preferred by three students who had appeared in the Common Entrance Test for admission to the LLB course in Delhi University, but have been unsuccessful in securing admission therein.

2. It is the petitioner's case that there are a number of vacant seats across all categories and therefore, they pray that the respondent be directed to fill up all the 3320 seats as notified in the Admission Bulletin by conducting further counselling sessions. The petitions are primarily opposed on the ground that, despite availability of vacant seats, no admissions can be granted after the cut-off date of 31.12.2021.

3. The respondent, Faculty of Law, Delhi University (`University') provides a three-year law programme (`LLB course') through its three centres being Campus Law Centre, Law Centre-I, and Law Centre-II. Admission to these institutes is based on the national entrance test held by the respondent University conducted by the National Testing Agency (`NTA').

4. Before dealing with the rival submissions of the parties on these aspects, it may be appropriate to note the factual matrix, which for the sake of convenience, is being noted from W.P.(C) 1035/2022.

5. As per the PG Bulletin of Information for 2021-22 (`Information Bulletin') issued by the Delhi University, the last date of admissions to PG courses was to be 30.09.2021. It was, however, provided that this date may be changed due to the unprecedented situation owing to the Covid-19 pandemic and the changed date was to be notified on the website of the Delhi University.

6. The petitioners being desirous of obtaining admission to the LLB course, appeared for the entrance examination for admission in the academic session 2021-22, conducted on 29.09.2021 by the respondent through the NTA, and as per the seat matrix released by the Faculty of Law, there were in all 3320 seats, which included 1170 seats in the UR category. The scorecards of the entrance exam were released on 06.11.2021 and both the petitioners scored 232 marks out of 400 therein.

7. Even though, as per the Information Bulletin, the last date for admission was 30.09.2021, the first merit list for admission to the LLB Course itself was released only on 23.11.2021. This was followed by the second merit list released on 09.12.2021, whereafter, on 15.12.2021, the Delhi University, realising that there were still a number of unfilled vacant seats in various Undergraduate (UG) and Postgraduate (PG) courses for the academic session 2021-22, issued a notification dated 15.12.2021, prescribing therein that, the last date of admission for these courses would be 31.12.2021.

8. On 20.12.2021 a `Revised Notice' was issued by the University, laying down the guidelines for PG admissions under the last and final round of admission, which was to include spot admissions. This notice specifically provided that, the candidates admitted provisionally in the previous admission rounds on the basis of undertakings, should submit their documents, so that such cases could be closed by 22.12.2021. It was further provided that no undertakings will be allowed in the spot round, and the all the admissions were to be approved by 28.12.2021.

9. Soon thereafter, Faculty of Law issued the third allocation/merit list on 27.12.2021, which was followed by a fourth merit list released on 31.12.2021. In respect of the fourth merit list, the respondent had, while informing the candidates vide its notice dated 30.12.2021 about the fourth counselling to be held on 31.12.2021, communicated the necessity to furnish all relevant documents