Today, the Bombay High Court overturned the University of Mumbai's rejection of admission for a prospective law student due to uncertainties surrounding the International Baccalaureate (IB) grading system for LLB program applicants.

In response to a petition filed by Anoushka Tusharkumar Desai, aged 20, contesting the university's declarations of her ineligibility for the 5-year LLB course despite obtaining a 60% mark in the IB, the court ruled in her favor. The university had cited equivalence standards mandating IB students to attain 24 credit points, whereas Desai had accumulated only 22 points.

The division bench of Justices Jitendra Jain and A S Chandurkar observed that there seems to be contradiction and confusion between the AIU procedure, the Circular issued by the university, and the Information Brochure of State CET. In light of this scenario, the benefit should be granted to the Petitioner.

The court highlighted that the Information Brochure of the Association of Indian Universities (AIU) explicitly mentions that AIU does not handle applications for equivalence of degrees in disciplines such as medicine, nursing, pharmacy, law, etc., as they are currently beyond its jurisdiction. Instead, these cases are managed by the respective professional councils.

Hence, the court pointed out that there existed a contradiction and confusion between the guidelines outlined in the AIU procedure and those stated in the Circular issued by the university, as well as the Information Brochure of the State CET.

In the Information Brochure of the State CET, there is no mention of score points; rather, only the percentage of marks is considered. However, the Circular issued by Respondent No. 2 (Mumbai University) on August 20th, 2014, specifies that IB Diploma Courses with 24 points should be deemed eligible for law courses. Nevertheless, the AIU brochure indicates that law courses are outside its jurisdiction.

Advocate Anita Castelino, represented the student while advocate Gaurav Sharma appeared for the university.

The court directed the university to regularize the petitioner's admission and also quashed the ineligibility notices issued to the student.

Case status - Anoushka Tusharkumar Desai vs State of Maharashtra