The Bombay High Court has recently ordered a University to pay a penalty of Rs. 50,000 for engaging in discriminatory admission practices based on caste.

The bench comprising Justices Mangesh S. Patil and Shailesh P. Brahme was handling a petition that requested specific actions, including extending the validity of exam results, releasing the final merit list, and providing research guidance for interdisciplinary studies.

In this particular case, the petitioner had applied for admission to the Doctorate (Ph.D.) program in Fine Arts but was denied admission for the year 2021. The denial was based on communication from the second respondent, citing the lack of available vacancies under the only research supervisor/guide. It's worth noting that the petitioner belongs to The bench observed that the admission procedure for the Ph.D. Program includes the requirement to confirm the availability of vacancies with research supervisors, in accordance with the University Grants Commission (UGC) guidelines. It was revealed that Dr. Shirish Ambekar is the sole research supervisor for the Fine Arts subject, and he is already mentoring five scholars. Given that the allowed quota was limited to four scholars, the second respondent should not have released an advertisement inviting applications for the entrance test since there were no vacancies available.the Scheduled Caste category.

The High Court determined that the petitioner is a highly qualified candidate who obtained the highest scores in the entrance examination for PET - I, PET - II papers, as well as the viva voce interview. However, due to the unavailability of a vacancy under the research supervisor, Dr. Shirish Ambekar, the court couldn't issue a directive to allocate an additional seat for the petitioner.

The bench pointed out that Dr. Shirish Ambekar had proactively communicated in advance, indicating that no vacancies were available under his supervision. The second respondent, which is the university, should have acknowledged this communication. However, these oversights or failures on the part of the university might not be advantageous to the petitioner since the existing rules do not account for such a scenario.

The High Court expressed its view that the second respondent, which is the University, failed to follow the established procedure for Ph.D. program admissions. It noted that the University issued an advertisement on 30th December 2020 without first confirming the availability of vacancies. The University also did not consider the petitioner's request within the valid period, which extended until 30th June 2022, to provide a research supervisor from another subject within the realm of interdisciplinary studies. The Court suggested that the least the University could have done was to promptly assign a guide to prevent any educational losses for the petitioner.

Based on the circumstances described above, the bench decided to dismiss the petition.

Case: Nilesh v. The State of Maharashtra, WRIT PETITION NO. 2853 OF 2023.