Teachers, activists take DU OBC admission complaints to Sibal

A group of students and teachers had earlier this week protested in the University campus, as well as outside the MHRD against what they said were discrepancies in admissions against the reserved category students.

A seven-member team of representatives met Sibal and laid before him their concerns and sought his immediate intervention in the matter.

The teachers said the minister then instructed University officials to ensure there is no violation in the procedure of admissions, they said.

"Our meeting was very positive. He instructed University officials including the Registrar and Dean Students Welfare, that there should be no violations," Prof Hany Babu, who was part of the delegation, said after the meeting.

Babu said they were alarmed at the fact that even when colleges had not reduced OBC cut offs significantly enough to fill all reserved seats, the University has already announced that post July 18, all reserved seats would be converted to general category.

He said the high court had last year clearly said that the 10 per cent margin in marks between the general category and OBCs were at the eligibility criteria and that the cut offs can be brought down by even more than that.

"Mr Sibal assured us that it was the ministry's responsibility to ensure the procedure was followed correctly, and he will see to it," said Babu.

"He said reservation has to be provided to SC/ST/OBC on total intake and not on sanctioned seats," he said.

Babu said the refrain of the University officials was that over admissions in the general category were on account of supernumerary categories, an argument that does not look good when one looks at the fact that almost 10,000 admissions were made last year above the sanctioned strength.

Several teachers and students have expressed concern that the University was not doing enough to ensure all reserved seats are filled, while over-admissions were being done in the general category.

Several students from the reserved category alleged that Ramjas college was admitting all students who meet a particular cut off requirement in the General category but was not applying the same policy for OBC students.

When a college declares a cut-off list, it is expected to provide admission to all students who meet that requirement even if it means admitting over the sanctioned strength.

However, some students applying in the reserved category alleged that a 'merit list' was released for OBC candidates to restrict their admissions to the sanctioned strength while general students were not subjected to such a criteria.