NEW DELHI: Compassion scored a rare victory over rule of law on Thursday as the Supreme Court permitted two students, who were ineligible to get admitted to engineering courses having failed in the West Bengal Joint Entrance Examination, to complete their BE courses solely because they belonged to families of farmers and backward classes.
During a previous hearing, a three-judge bench led by CJI DY Chandrachud had told counsel for the two students, Soni Kumar and Arjit Dey, that there is little the court could do as they were ineligible to get admitted in the absence of securing any rank in the WBJEE.
But the counsel had pleaded that they have completed their seventh semester, the penultimate one before getting their degrees in electrical and civil engineering courses for a college under Burdwan University. It is a matter of just one semester and their career and lives are at stake, he had pleaded.
For the Burdwan University, advocate Kunal Chatterjee said that the Calcutta HC had rightly refused to allow them to continue with their courses as their irregular admission, possibly in connivance with the concerned college principal, was detected when they were in fifth semester.
Chatterjee said the SC had in a series of judgments ruled that admissions into specialized courses cannot be granted to ineligible students. But the students counsel played the socially emotive card by saying one student belonged to a farmer’s family while the other belonged to a OBC community.
“Both of them would be the first engineering graduates for their respective families and it is a matter of just one more semester after which they would be getting their degrees,” he said.
The emotional argument did have a positive impact on CJI Chandrachud, who along with Justices J B Pardiwala and Satish Sharma decided to allow the two students to take admission in the eighth semester. However, it said the university was free to act against others who are responsible for the irregular admission of the two students.
This would mean that those who tweaked the admission rules and procedure would get punished but those who enjoyed the fruits of the irregular admission would go scot-free, a eventuality which would conflict with the SC’s recent ruling in Bilkis Bano case convicts, whose remission by Gujarat government was set aside by a bench headed by Justice B V Nagarathna.
Justice Nagarathna had said, “In a democracy where rule of law is its essence, it has to be preserved and enforced particularly by courts of law. Compassion and sympathy have no role to play where rule of law is required to be enforced. If the rule of law has to be preserved as the essence of democracy, it is the duty of the courts to enforce the same without fear or favour, affection or ill-will.”
During a previous hearing, a three-judge bench led by CJI DY Chandrachud had told counsel for the two students, Soni Kumar and Arjit Dey, that there is little the court could do as they were ineligible to get admitted in the absence of securing any rank in the WBJEE.
But the counsel had pleaded that they have completed their seventh semester, the penultimate one before getting their degrees in electrical and civil engineering courses for a college under Burdwan University. It is a matter of just one semester and their career and lives are at stake, he had pleaded.
For the Burdwan University, advocate Kunal Chatterjee said that the Calcutta HC had rightly refused to allow them to continue with their courses as their irregular admission, possibly in connivance with the concerned college principal, was detected when they were in fifth semester.
Chatterjee said the SC had in a series of judgments ruled that admissions into specialized courses cannot be granted to ineligible students. But the students counsel played the socially emotive card by saying one student belonged to a farmer’s family while the other belonged to a OBC community.
“Both of them would be the first engineering graduates for their respective families and it is a matter of just one more semester after which they would be getting their degrees,” he said.
The emotional argument did have a positive impact on CJI Chandrachud, who along with Justices J B Pardiwala and Satish Sharma decided to allow the two students to take admission in the eighth semester. However, it said the university was free to act against others who are responsible for the irregular admission of the two students.
This would mean that those who tweaked the admission rules and procedure would get punished but those who enjoyed the fruits of the irregular admission would go scot-free, a eventuality which would conflict with the SC’s recent ruling in Bilkis Bano case convicts, whose remission by Gujarat government was set aside by a bench headed by Justice B V Nagarathna.
Justice Nagarathna had said, “In a democracy where rule of law is its essence, it has to be preserved and enforced particularly by courts of law. Compassion and sympathy have no role to play where rule of law is required to be enforced. If the rule of law has to be preserved as the essence of democracy, it is the duty of the courts to enforce the same without fear or favour, affection or ill-will.”
