The Bombay High Court declined to intervene in Mumbai University's decision to cancel a student's admission after four semesters, citing insufficient marks in the International Baccalaureate (IB) program.

The Court remarked that if the student failed to achieve the predicted grades, it could not compel the university to relax its cut-off standards.

A division bench comprising Justices A.S. Chandurkar and M.M. Sathaye examined the petitioner's challenge against Mumbai University's decision, which declared the petitioner ineligible for the B.Voc (Interior Design) degree course.

After finishing her 10th grade, the petitioner enrolled in the two-year International Baccalaureate (IB) Diploma programme. She appeared for her 12th IB Board examination, and the results were pending.

IB Board students are permitted to apply to colleges upon receiving a temporary or provisional eligibility certificate from the University. Accordingly, the petitioner applied for an eligibility certificate from Mumbai University for the academic year 2019-20, based on her 'predicted grades' under the IB programme.

The university issued a 'prima facie eligibility certificate' for admission to the degree course, contingent on the petitioner passing the IB diploma with a minimum of 24 credit points. 

Subsequently, the petitioner was allotted a seat in the B.Voc degree course and completed two years of the program. Although she could not pass all the subjects, she was allowed to continue on an ATKT (Allowed to Keep Term) basis.

However, the petitioner later received an email from the University informing her that her admission to the B.Voc Interior Design degree course had been cancelled, as she failed to meet the minimum 24 credit points requirement for the IB diploma.

The petitioner challenged the University's decision, arguing that the cancellation of her eligibility after completing two years of the course was unjustified. She relied on the case of Rohan Ravindra Thatte v. University of Mumbai and Ors, where the Bombay High Court quashed Mumbai University's decision to declare a student ineligible for the 3-year LL.B. course after he had already completed two out of six semesters. The Court had observed that it would be unfair to inform the student about their ineligibility so late in the course.

On the other hand, the respondent-university argued that the petitioner did not achieve the predicted IB points. It further stated that the petitioner submitted her IB certificate to the college only in August 2022, and therefore, the college should not be held at fault.

The Court observed that the University was correct in setting the requirement of a minimum 24 IB points for eligibility to pursue the degree course. It stated that the Court could not direct the University to lower the cut-off standard if the petitioner failed to meet the necessary points.

“In any case, in our considered view, there is nothing wrong with the University insisting upon meeting with the criteria of scoring minimum 24 IB points for being eligible to pursue the degree course as per its policy under the circular mentioned above. If the Petitioner does not score the necessary cut-off points, the Court cannot direct the University to lower the cut-off standard.”

The Court also noted that University did not contribute to any delay. It observed, “If the students like the Petitioner choose to complete their schooling from IB board, which does not declare its result in time necessary for them to apply to further courses, and if the University gives necessary accommodation of issuing provisional eligibility based on predicted marks and then if the student does not actually score as per prediction, as in the present case, then the College or the University cannot be blamed.”

The Court further stated that the decision relied upon by the petitioner did not address the issue of provisional eligibility being issued based on predicted marks. It referred to Parakh Jaiprakash Shahal vs. Thakur College of Science and Commerce and Ors (2017), where the Bombay High Court held that since the petitioner had not secured the required points in the IB Board according to the predicted marksheet, the cancellation of admission was not incorrect.