Indore: Devi Ahilya Vishwavidyalaya (DAVV), which has heaved a sigh of relief when Indore bench of Madhya Pradesh High Court has denied quashing the university’s decision of cancelling common entrance test (CET) and permitted it to grant admissions on the basis of merit in last qualifying exams, is now going to file a review petition in the court.
Reason?
Some points of the verdict have complicated things for the university and it has no other options but to move a review petition in the court to get things right for itself.
“The court order is not only having its impact on courses under CET but also on other courses run by the university. That is why we will have to move court again,” said vice chancellor Prof Renu Jain.
Categorising its courses in three types viz Type-I, Type-II and Type-III, the university in May has invited applications for admissions for 204 programmes.
While admissions in Type-I courses were to be granted through CET, departmental level exam was to be held in Type-II courses. Besides, merit in qualifying exam should have been the base for admissions in Type-III courses.
The university held departmental level exam for Type-II courses and admitted the students whereas computer-based CET was conducted on June 23 for Type-I courses.
The CET was marred by technical glitches so the university through a notification dated July 27 cancelled the exam.
Student Aditya Gilke moved court challenging the decision of cancellation of CET. He informed the court that he has applied for admission on seeing advertisement of the university for 204 programmes and has paid examination fee of Rs 1,500 also. He demanded to quash the DAVV’s notification for cancelling the CET.
The court did not quash the CET cancellation notification but it ordered the university to refund the entire amount received from the students. The court verdict reads: “The University shall refund the entire amount received from the students to the students within a period of 60 days from today (August 2).”
The following sentence reads: “It is also made clear that this order is being passed for permitting the university to admit students in 204 academic programmes of the university on the basis of percentage of last qualifying examination…..”
These two sentences in the verdict caught attention of the university professors nearly a fortnight after the verdict was passed by the court.
“The CET was held for merely 62 out of 204 courses. As our side did not put the case properly, the court may have thought that CET was conducted for 204 courses and accordingly ordered for admission in all the courses on basis of merit in qualifying exam.
Our problem is that we had admitted students in Type-II courses much before the court verdict came. So departmental level exam can’t be cancelled and students are granted admission afresh on merit basis now,” a professor wishing anonymity said.
He also stated that the university hold doctoral entrance test (DET) for admission in PhD and national entrance exam in MPhil programmes as per directives of University Grants Commission. “So admissions on the basis of merit in qualifying exam are not possible in these programmes,” he added.
He further added: “They have charged Rs 1500 from students for CET and Rs 1000 from non-CET courses. As the CET was cancelled, the court order should have been for refunding amount charged from CET taking students but the order implies as if we have been directed to refund charges received for other courses as well.”
