Bombay HC raps TISS for allocating OBC seats to open category students

Bombay High Court. File Pic

The Bombay high court (HC) on Friday came down on Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) for irregularities in admissions to Master in Arts (MA) in Applied Psychology course. "You (TISS) have committed fraud against the entire society," said the bench of chief justice Dipankar Datta and justice Girish Kulkarni. "You have admitted somebody against seats for OBC category, but the candidate does not belong to OBC category," the bench added.

As per a report in Hindustan Times, the judges were irked to note that admissions were given to some open category candidates on vacant OBC category seats for the course and then admission of some of those candidates were cancelled while some were asked to join the course at the institute's Chennai campus.

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"There is something very fishy about this," the bench commented after additional solicitor general Anil Singh pointed out some errors in the first round of admissions to the course. He also pointed out that the number of seats was increased by 13 in order to fulfill the commitment to the students already admitted.

"Whose commitment is this," the judges asked Singh and questioned as to why the admissions were not cancelled after the so-called errors were detected. "We don't know... Perhaps that was done deliberately," the bench added.

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The court was hearing a petition filed by Pune resident Anshruta Deepkumar who wants to pursue the course and had therefore appeared for TISS common entrance test. She has moved HC through advocate Akash Menon questioning the admission process.

Deepkumar has filed an application seeking direction to TISS to carry out admission process afresh and forthwith admit her for the course. In the application, she claimed that she had secured a rank that was above the cut-off marks set by the institute for admission to the course at both Mumbai and Chennai campuses, and therefore, she was entitled to be admitted, especially after the seats were increased by 13.

She added that she was denied admission as the institute limited intake of open category candidates without giving rhyme or reason.

TISS has, however, maintained that the petitioner was 12th on the waiting list and that all open category seats at both the campuses were completely filled. The institute also claimed that the studies for the said course started way back in August 19, and the first semester course is almost over.

"It is difficult to make up the lost time for anyone who joins at this stage," TISS said in an affidavit filed in response to the petition. "Further, anyone joining now would also fall short on the attendance norms," it added.

The HC has now posted the petition for further hearing on Monday with a direction to TISS to inform the court how the institute proposes to fill some vacant seats.

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