The National Law University, Delhi , has informed the Delhi High Court that the vertical reservation for OBC and EWS categories in its B.A. LL.B and LL.M programmes is restored in its revised admission notification by making a correction.
The Division Bench of Justice HimaKohli and Justice Subramonium Prasad were informed through an affidavit on the said restoration.
In pursuance of the court’s last orderdated June 29 wherein clarification restricted to domicile reservation were present and had nothing to do with vertical reservations, the said restoration of vertical reservation has been done.
Further, the court highlighted that the University misinterpreted the court’s order was only restricted to 50% domicile reservation andhad nothing to do with the vertical reservation for OBC and EWS categories.
In an application moved by Delhi Government where the admission notification issued by the National Law University, Delhi was challenged as it had eliminated vertical reservation for Other Backward Classes (OBC) and Economically Weaker Section (EWS) categories, the order has come as a response.
A clarification was sought from the Court in an application in a pending writ petition titled BalvinderSangwan v. State of NCT of Delhi, to seek whether the maintenance of status quo ante, as mentioned in the order dated June 29, refers to only 50% domicile reservation and not to the vertical reservation for OBC and EWS categories.
Submissions by the Delhi Government stated that the decision of the NLU Delhi University is not only the incorrect interpretation of the court’s order but it also goes against the University’s constitutional and statutory obligations in order to eliminate 22% reservation for OBC and 10% reservation for EWS in its Admission Notification released on June 30.
The present writ petition only concerned itself with the 50% domicile reservation, and had nothing to do with the vertical reservation for OBC and EWS categories.
Arguments were raised that the University is statutorily bound to provide vertical reservation to OBC under Central Educational Institutions (Reservation in Admission) Act, 2006.
In addition to this, the decision of the University to not to provide hostel accommodation to LL.M and PhD students of NLU Delhi was also challenged in the application,
‘Now, in terms of the Admission Notification dated 30.06.2020 of NLU Delhi, only a total of 415 students (plus detainees and contingency if any) will have to be accommodated in the Hostels, as against provision for 480 accommodations.’
The NLU Delhi is implicitly discouraging applications from candidates who may hail from OBC or EWS sections of society by revising the admission notification, contended Delhi Government.
Therefore, till the final disposal of the present application, the Delhi Government wants the court to stay the operation of the revised admission notification dated 30/06/20.
Advocate NipunSaxena is representing the petitioner in the application moved in the pending writ petition titled BalvinderSangwan v. State of NCT of Delhi.
