Mahesh Raut, a Gadchiroli-based activist fighting for the rights of tribals, was arrested in June 2018 in connection with the Elgar Parishad-Maoist links case and has been in judicial custody since then.
In 2023, Raut, who has been lodged at the Taloja Central Prison in Navi Mumbai, appeared for the Maharashtra Common Entrance Test (Law) after taking permission from a special court and ranked 95 in the merit list of state candidates.
He was provisionally allotted a seat in Mumbai’s Siddharth College of Law for the academic year of 2024-25 and his sister paid the required fees to freeze the seat. But he couldn’t physically present for verification of documents in the college during the institutional round, leading to the cancellation of his admission.
Raut moved the high court seeking a direction to the University of Mumbai to grant him admission for the three-year law degree course at the Siddharth College.
Both the university and the Siddharth college opposed his petition, saying LLB is a professional course which requires a candidate to have compulsory attendance of 75 per cent, which Raut would not be able to fulfil.
The court, however, observed that though it was obvious that the purpose of appearing for the CET is to seek admission for the LLB course, no one opposed when Raut sought permission to appear for the test.
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"Imprisonment does not restrict an individual's right to pursue further education. Denying the opportunity to take admission in the college despite a seat being allotted is a violation of the fundamental right of the petitioner," said a division bench of Justices A.S. Gadkari and Neela Gokhale.
The court allowed the petitioner to take admission at Siddharth College for the 2024-27 batch.
"Since the college requires physical presence of a candidate for verification of documents, we leave it to the college to consider permitting the authorised representative/next of kin of the petitioner to physically attend the college and verify the documents or in the alternative, to take the signature of the petitioner on the documents from the Taloja Central Prison," it said.
The court, however, refused to grant any other exemption to Raut who will have to abide by all rules and regulations as other candidates. This raises the question as to whether he will be able to appear for the examination.
The court said the university and the college are at liberty to refuse permission to the petitioner from appearing in the examination for failure to satisfy the minimum attendance criteria or any other eligibility criteria.
According to report, Raut had been contemplating taking the CET for around two years. “In his six years in prison, he’s come across many underprivileged people who cannot afford legal aid, let alone read their chargesheet. After the Supreme Court stayed the bail given by the Bombay high court, it seemed like he would be staying in prison for a while longer. So, he decided to use his time [to study law],” one of his relatives told the Hindustan Times in May.
