Court notices to government, CBSE on seat allotment system

NEW DELHI - The Delhi High Court Wednesday issued notices to the Ministry of Human Resource Development (HRD), Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE), and the Chairman of the Central Counselling Board for adopting an arbitrary method in offering seats to students during counselling for the All India Entrance for Engineering Examinations (AIEEE).

The petition was filed by 19-year-old Vaibhav Gupta, who appeared for the AIEEE and secured all-India rank of 45107 and in Delhi 3972. According to his petition, he was denied admission to a government engineering college despite there being many vacant seats and was offered seats in private institutions during the counselling.

In his petition, he also mentioned that the authorities also threatened him that if he did not take admission in any of the private universities offered to him, his fee amount of Rs.34,000 would be forfeited. He was also told that he would not be allowed to participate in future counsellings for selection of seats.

Gupta was forced to take admission at the Institute of Technology, Guru Ghasi Das Vishwavidyalaya which was his preference number 129. “There were around 300 seats vacant during the fifth counselling out of which 23 seats were vacant in different government colleges in Delhi,” said the petition. The fifth counselling was held Aug 3.

“Even after that he was restrained from appearing for the sixth round. The results of the sixth round show that there were many vacancies available at various government universities and institutions. A high-level inquiry must be done into the seat allotment system adopted by the concerned authorities,” said Gupta’s counsel O.P. Saxena.

The petition also alleged that the CCB was trying to fill up the seats of private universities and keeping the seats in government colleges and other established institutions vacant.

“The authorities are engaged in encouraging private universities at the cost of government engineering colleges and compelling the students to take admissions in such private universities,” said the petition.

According to it, these private universities and engineering colleges are offering seats on their own to the students who have not even participated in AIEEE and despite this offer, their seats are not being filled up as students prefer government-run engineering colleges and NITs as they are better institutions in terms of infrastructure facilities and placement.