ANAMOL BHANDARI Vs. DELHI TECHNOLOGICAL UNIVERSITY

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Law mandates that that State provides reservation to the persons belonging to Scheduled Castes/Scheduled Tribes ("SC/ST" for the sake of brevity) Category. Law also puts an obligation on the State to provide reservation to the differently abled persons, who fit into the definition of "disability" as defined in Section 2 (d) of Persons with Disabilities (Equal Opportunities, Protection of Rights and Full Participation) Act, 1995 [hereinafter referred to as "Disabilities Act"]. In tune with this legal obligation, the provisions are made for providing such reservations to SC/ST categories on the one hand and the disabled persons on the other hand, not only in the employment, but for admissions to educational institutions as well. In order to ensure that these categories are able to get the fruits of these reservations in reality, and that provision does not remain only on papers, provision for relaxed standards are also made, i.e., rigours of the regours of standard applicable for General Category/Unreserved Categories are softened and relaxed for these categories. So far so good, as this is in tune with the Constitutional mandate. However, an importance issue which is raised by the petitioner in the present petition is: whether the extent and quantum of this relaxation can be different for disabled qua SC/ST categories. To put it straight, the respondent, viz., Delhi Technological University (hereinafter referred to as the "DTU") has provided 10% of concession of marks in the minimum eligibility requirements for candidates belonging to SC/ST, but relaxation of 5% only is permissible for People with Disabilities ("PWD" in short). Whether different treatment to the two categories is permissible under law or it amounts to hostile discrimination insofar as PWD category is concerned, is the issue needs to be examined in the present petition.

(2.) The petitioner passed his All India Senior School Certificate Examination, 2012, from Central Board of Secondary Education [CBSE] with English (Core), Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry and Computer Science as his subjects. Aggregate percentage in Physics, Chemistry and Mathematics (PCM), obtained by him, was 52.66%. He is a physically disabled persons having 50% disability due to right side hemiparesis called Moya-moya disease, as per the certificate annexed by him along with instant petition issued by Govind Ballabh Pant Hospital, New Delhi, Govt. of NCT of Delhi. With this kind of disability, indubitably, he is governed by the definition of disability under the Disabilities Act.

(3.) CBSE conducts All India Engineering/Architecture Entrance Examination (AIEEE), 2012 and the successful candidates, who appeared in this examination are allocated in various educational institutions imparting education in Engineering, which are affiliated to CBSE. Though DTU is a statutory and autonomous body, instead of conducting its own Entrance Examination for admission in Engineering course, it falls back on the AIEEE examination conducted by CBSE. Of course, it has its own admission process, procedure and rules. It has fixed eligibility criteria for admission into this course, for general candidates as 60% aggregate mark in PCM. However, concession for SC/ST candidates is allowed by the DTU at 10%. Thus, the minimum eligibility requirement for persons belonging to SC/ST becomes 50%. Relaxation given to PWD is, however, lesser, i.e., 5% marks in the minimum eligibility requirement for PWD, category (in which the petitioner falls) which means minimum mark to be obtained in PCM is 55%.