Mid-session admissions are impermissible; universities must adhere to established admission processes and criteria, including tie breaker rules.

JUDGMENT :

TUSHAR RAO GEDELA, J.

1. Present appeal has been preferred under Clause X of the Letters Patent Act, 1866 assailing the judgement dated 15.10.2023 in W.P.(C) 13825/2024 captioned “Sumit Kumar Singh & Anr vs. University of Delhi”, whereby the learned Single Judge has dismissed the writ petition filed by the appellants seeking admission on vacant seat of LLB program of the respondent no.1/University of Delhi.

2. The facts, shorn of unnecessary details and germane to the issue at hand and collated from the underlying writ petition and the present appeal, are as follows:-

a. It is the case of the appellants that the National Testing Agency (NTA) announced the Common University Entrance Test [CUET (PG) 2024] on 26.12.2023. According to the schedule released by NTA on 26.02.2024, the examination for the subject name “General (LLB etc.)” was to be held on 13.03.2024. The appellant nos. 1 & 2 appeared in the said examination.

b. The appellants stated that NTA released the scorecards of the candidates who appeared in CUET (PG) 2024 on 18.05.2024. The appellants scored 176 marks in the subject name “General (LLB etc.)”.

c. It is the case of the appellants that after the completion of the admission rounds, the respondent no.1/University of Delhi (hereinafter referred to as “DU”) announced the schedule for Spot Admission: Round-I for seats left vacant; Round-II for seats left vacant after the admissions in Spot Admission: Round-I; Round-III for seats left vacant after the admissions in Spot Admission: Round-II and Round-IV for seats left vacant after the admissions in Spot Admission: Round-III on dates ranging between 22.07.2024 and 25.08.2024. No further Spot Admission Rounds were announced by the respondent no.1/DU.

d. The appellant stated that despite having scored the required marks as per the cut-off/ qualifying marks and the vacancy of seats in all the Law Centers of the Faculty of Law, University of Delhi, neither of the appellants were admitted.

e. The appellants have sent emails to the grievance redressal cell of the respondent no.1/DU, highlighting the non-allocation of seats to them despite meeting the cut-off. Aggrieved by the lack of response to their grievance, appellants filed an RTI application dated 25.09.2024 seeking relevant details from the respondent no.1/DU.

f. It is the case of the appellants that since there was no response from the respondent no.1/DU, the appellants had filed the underlying writ petition seeking direction to the respondent no.1/DU to grant admissions to the appellants for the academic year 2024-2025.

g. Vide the impugned judgement dated 15.10.2024, the learned Single Judge had denied the admission to the appellants on the grounds that the appellants obtained marks much below the marks of the last admitted candidate; the respondent no.1/University has not granted admission to any of the less meritorious candidate than the appellants and admission against the seat vacant on account of students leaving the course mid-way are not appreciated unless there are exceptional circumstances.

h. Hence the appellants filed the present appeal.

CONTENTIONS OF THE APPELLANT:-

3. Mr. Gaurav Arora, learned counsel for the appellants at the outset, submits that that appellants having secured 176 marks in the CUET(PG) 2024 for the subject “General (LLB etc.)”, were entitled to admission in L.L.B course. He emphasizes that as on the cut-off date (31.08.2024) as extended till 03.09.2024, there existed vacant seats unfilled by the respondent no.1/DU and thus admission to the appellants could not have been denied. He contended that it is trite that the entire exercise of counselling is undertaken to ensure that all the vacancies are fille