The Supreme Court on Monday directed IIT Dhanbad to give admission to a dalit youth who had narrowly missed the deadline for paying the deposit fee.
The top court’s order came as a major relief to 18-year-old Atul Kumar who had gone pillar to post to secure his hard-earned seat.
The court took its extraordinary powers under Article 142 of the Constitution to direct the prestigious institution to admit Atul to the BTech course.
It observed that a talented student like the petitioner who belongs to a marginalised group should not be left out.
“We direct that candidate is granted admission to IIT Dhanbad and let him be in the same batch to which he would have been granted admission if the fees would have been paid,” said a bench of Chief Justice D.Y. Chandrachud and Justices J.B. Pardiwala and Manoj Misra.
The court also noted that this was the petitioner’s last chance to secure admission, since only two attempts were permissible.
“All the best! Acha kariye (do well),” said CJI Chandrachud as the hearing concluded.
Many doors knocked
Atul, the son of a daily wager, hails from Titora village in Muzaffarnagar district of Uttar Pradesh.
His parents had failed to deposit Rs 17,500 as the acceptance fee by June 24, the deadline for depositing the requisite fees for blocking the seat.
The petitioner claimed that he had logged in at 4.45 pm at the portal after arranging the funds, but the portal was closed at 5 pm and the payment was not processed.
Having denied the seat, Atul initially approached the National Commission for Scheduled Castes and the Jharkhand Legal Services Authority.
While the NCSC expressed its inability to help him, the JLSA advised him to approach the Madras High Court as the JEE test was conducted by IIT-Madras. The high court asked him to approach the apex court.
What’s Article 142?
Article 142 of the Constitution gives discretionary powers to the Supreme Court to pass an order for doing complete justice in any cause or matter pending before it.
The top court had made several orders invoking this provision, including those in the Union Carbide case and Cleansing of Taj Mahal. However, in recent years, many of such verdicts from the apex court drew criticsim from various quarters who labelled them as judicial overreach.