Calcutta HC relief for 218 undergraduate students

The Calcutta High Court today gave permission to 218 students of a girls college to sit for their examination which had been refused by the Calcutta University on the ground that the institution had exceeded its intake capacity at the time of enrolment.
The fate of the undergraduate students had been hanging in the balance following the university's decision to refuse their registration over its claim that the college had admitted 10 students in excess of its intake capacity in five honours subjects.
In an interim order, Justice Arindam Sinha directed CU to complete registration process of all the 218 students and allow them to sit for the Part-I Honours subjects which they have studied for.

The Part-I examination of the university is scheduled to commence from March 6.
Moving the petition in person on behalf of the students, Barisha Vivekananda College for Women principal Soma Bhattacharya claimed before the court that registration was denied despite the college having abided by the rules of the university.
With no lawyer appearing for hearings in the high court owing to an ongoing ceasework by the advocates, the principal of the West Bengal government-aided college submitted before the court that CU had on March 27, 2017 asked for admission intake capacity of all its affiliate colleges.

Stating that since no specific academic year was mentioned in the circular, the college authorities provided details of its intake capacity for the then running year 2016-17.

Bhattacharya said that on May 30, 2017 the university published the revised admission capacity list of colleges for 2017-18, in which it was found that for her college, the capacity mentioned was that of what it provided for in 2016-17.
She submitted that the college had hiked seats in different subjects on the basis of a government circular of 2013-14 to increase the number of students in each institution by 17 per cent by 2019-2020 and that the college had informed about it in time.
The court noted that the university had allowed colleges to revise their admission capacity and to inform it, which the principal said was done by the college.

A communique was sent to the CU authorities by the college indicating the mistake and sought rectification.
However, this had not been done and the authorities refused registration of all 218 students in the five streams of Bengali, History, Political Science, Education and Botany over its claim that 10 students had been admitted in excess of capacity.
Justice Sinha asked the deputy inspector of colleges Nishad Alam, who appeared on behalf of the university, to give a reason for the refusal. Alam could only tell the court that it was the decision of the syndicate.
The officer also offered three options for the affected students - that they change their honours subjects or they change to general pass graduation course or they get admitted to some other college affiliated to CU.

The principal objected saying that none of the options were acceptable as the Part-I examination commences from March 6 and submitted that accepting any of these would severely affect the career of the students.
Noting the plight of the students, the judge in an interim order, directed CU authorities to grant registration to all the 218 students and to allow them to appear for the examination.
The court directed that all these students would have to abide by the final order on the petition and fixed the next date of hearing on March 21.