SC directs IIT-Bombay to aid Dalit student who lost Admission due to Late Fee Payment

Shivani Gadhavi –

Published On: November 21, 2021 at 19:30 IST

The Supreme Court of India on 22^nd November 2021 passed an extraordinary direction under Article 142 of the Constitution of India to facilitate the admission of a Dalit student who could not get admitted due to late payment of the admission fee, in the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay.

The Supreme Court Bench of Justices D.Y. Chandrachud and A.S. Bopanna in the case of Prince Jabir Singh Vs Union of India and Ors, ordered the Joint Selection Allocation Authority (JOSAA) to lay aside an extra seat for the said student and to comply with the given order within 48 hours.

The Supreme Court Bench stated, “This court has been moved by a young Dalit student who is stated to be presently on the verge of losing a valued seat which has been allocated to at IIT Bombay. The travails of the appellant have taken in from Allahabad, where he is presently studying, to Kharagpur and then to Bombay and eventually to the national capital.”

The Apex Court also submitted that it should be taken into consideration that the aforementioned order passed under Article 142 should not be of hinderance to any other student’s admission and that the concerned petitioner should be given a supernumerary seat in case there is any kind of vacancy in the existing number of seats.

The Advocate representing the Respondent argued, “There are other students also who could not pay the fee and hence, their candidature has been rejected. I just wanted to convey this to the Court.”

The Bench replied to this stating, “Then you must have a more robust system. What about students from small villages, small towns where there may not be such banking facilities available with the child? Not everybody would have multiple credit cards! There may be instances of the bank not responding. Some modality is needed to deal with such cases. Students spend years and years preparing. There has to be some buffer for students facing insurmountable hurdles! Otherwise, only children from metropolitan cities would go to IIT.”