Form of words:
New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Monday helped a 17-year-old Dalit boy who exercised his extraordinary powers to direct IIT Bombay to create a seat for him. The boy had qualified for admission in the institute but missed the seat due to non-payment of fees due to technical and server error.
A bench of Justices DY Chandrachud and AS Bopanna said it would be “a great mockery of justice” if the boy, Prince Jaibir Singh, is denied admission for non-payment of fees despite trying. The court then directed the Joint Seat Allocation Authority (JOSAA) to allot a seat for the student.
The court, however, made it clear that the seat should be allotted to Singh without obstructing the admission of any other student.
NS josa 2021 Has been set up by the Ministry of Education to manage and regulate the combined seat allotment for admission to 114 institutions for the academic year 2021-22. This includes 23 IITs, 31 NITs, IIEST Shibpur, 26 IIITs and 33 other government funded technical institutes.
In doing so, the court felt that it was an appropriate case to exercise its powers under Article 142 of the Constitution, which would have allowed it to pass any order necessary to do “complete justice” in any matter. Is.
“The Supreme Court may, in the exercise of its jurisdiction, pass such decree or make such order as may be necessary to do full justice in any matter or matter pending before it…” says Article 142.
Read also: ‘Serious error, unacceptable’ – why SC quashes Bombay HC’s ‘skin-to-skin’ contact POCSO decision
‘Sometimes we have to rise above the law’
During the hearing last week, Justice Chandrachud commented, “Here is a Dalit boy who has made it to IIT. How many students are able to achieve this? May he rise to lead the country in the next 10 years! Now, he is losing his seat through no fault of his own. While they can be removed on humanitarian grounds, on the basis of law, sometimes, we have to rise above the law. ,
Hence the court asked the IIT-Bombay authorities to get the details of the admission list and explore the possibility of allotting a seat to Prince Jaibir Singh.
During the hearing on Monday, the court told the authorities: “Don’t be wooden like this. He passed the exam last year, he passed it this year, he could not pay the fee on time. Treat him from a human point of view… You have to see what is the ground reality, what is the reality of our social life… This is not a case where the student has been negligent or made a mistake. This is a real matter.”
However, when Jossa informed the court that no vacant seats were now available for the course, the court passed an order under Article 142.
Bombay HC had dismissed the petition
The petitioner had cleared the Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) Advance 2021 with an all India rank of 25,894 and a Scheduled Caste (SC) category rank of 864. Hence, he was allotted a seat at IIT-Bombay for civil engineering on 27 October. this year.
According to the petition, Singh logged on to the website of the Joint Seat Allotment Authority (JoSA) on October 29 and uploaded the required documents. However, that day he ran short of money and could not make the payment. Screenshots and access history of such attempts were attached to the petition.
When his sister transferred the money to him on October 30, Singh now claims that he is unable to make the payment despite trying nearly a dozen times. This, the petition said, was “due to a technical error on the end of their card issuing bank, i.e. State Bank of India”. Thereafter, he tried to pay the fee at a cyber cafe, called the IIT-Bombay officials and emailed them, but to no avail.
While the Bombay High Court refused to hear his plea, the Supreme Court has now accepted his plea, invoking Article 142 of the Constitution.
This provision has been invoked in many historical cases earlier. It was used against top BJP leaders LK Advani and Murli Manohar Joshi in the Babri Masjid demolition case, as well as to shift the criminal trial in that case from Rae Bareli to Lucknow. The court also referred to a provision to provide relief to thousands of people affected by the Bhopal gas tragedy in 1989, and to cancel the allocation of coal blocks given since 1993 in 2014, without any specific finding on wrongdoing by those people. , which were allotted. in block.
(Edited by Neha Mahajan)
Read also: Encourage legal aid, give it weightage in selection of ‘senior’ advocates: SC Justice UU Lalita
subscribe our channel youtube And Wire
Why is the news media in crisis and how can you fix it?
India needs independent, unbiased, non-hyphenated and questionable journalism even more as it is facing many crises.
But the news media itself is in trouble. There have been brutal layoffs and pay-cuts. The best of journalism is shrinking, crude prime-time spectacle.
ThePrint has the best young journalists, columnists and editors to work for it. Smart and thinking people like you will have to pay a price to maintain this quality of journalism. Whether you live in India or abroad, you can Here,