“The right to education is a legal right,” says Bombay HC

The Bombay High Court came to the rescue of a student from Chhattisgarh who was denied a seat in the Master of Science course following an accident. It directed the Centre for Excellence in Basic Science (CEBS) of Mumbai University to provide her the seat under the over-quota reserved for students from Jammu and Kashmir. The court observed that the right to education is a legal right and that in the special circumstances, one of the two unused over-quota seats could be used for the girl.

The HC was hearing a petition filed by Lamya Siddiqui in which she claimed that she was denied admission as she did not attend the institute's counselling session because she met with an accident two days before the session and was therefore bedridden.

The court also noted that Siddiqui has excellent academic records and scored 90.2% in the national level entrance examination for the course. It was necessary to recognise the girl's merits and remove discrimination. Her chance of getting admission in the course should not be affected by her inability to attend a face-to-face meeting, the court said.

“We do not believe that the mere inability to participate in such a review process in an exceptional situation should cause serious harm to the academic prospects of a bright student,” a panel of judges Girish Kulkarni and Somasekhar Sundaresan said on September 12.

In addition, two other students who had informed the Institute that they could not attend the lecture due to health reasons were allowed to send a representative with all the necessary documents and were granted provisional admission.

The judges found that Siddiqui had suffered a manifest injustice simply by not being able to attend the counselling session and that the impact had been disproportionate.

The court further stated that it was persuaded to grant her discharge because otherwise the two surplus seats would remain unused. The seats would in fact be wasted and Siddiqui's earnings would go by the wayside.

After completing Class 12, Siddiqui appeared for the National Entrance Screening Test to get into the five-year integrated Master of Science course offered by the National Institute of Science Education and Research, Bhubaneswar (NISER) and the Centre for Excellence in Basic Sciences, Mumbai (CEBS). She secured an all-India rank of 491, qualifying her for admission to the course. In August, she received an email from CEBS inviting her for an entrance counselling session, but she was unable to attend due to the accident.

She informed the institute about the accident and asked for an alternative consultation, as the admission procedure was still ongoing, but this was refused. Therefore, she turned to the HC.

CEBS said that the admission process was complete and all seats were filled. It claimed that only two seats reserved under the over-quota provision for students from Jammu and Kashmir were still vacant.

The HC therefore directed CEBS to grant her admission and to complete all procedural formalities expeditiously.