Hiatus In Mumbai Degree Admissions over Quota Issue

The Maharashtra Government has imposed embargo in the normal conduction of admission process. All the minority institutes have to put a hold on the admission process until the issue of reservation of seats resolves. This has resulted in an unnecessary delay in already lingering admission schedule. It will directly impact the students who are about to take admission this year in these institutes.

The government had to take this step after the orders of Bombay high court regarding the abolition of seats for backward category students in the minority institutes. So, to revoke the orders the government has filed a special leave petition in the apex court.

This situation became critical when on last Tuesday, the Mumbai University released the merit list without names of backward category students separately. Thus, the university will not release the second merit list today. It will approximately take 10 days to re-start the admission process, only if the Supreme Court decision favors the reservation policy.

Though most of the popular colleges like St Xavier’s College, HR, Mithibai, Jai Hind, KC and Narsee Monjee etc, continued with the Bombay High Court 2017 orders. Which stated that there will be no reservation policy for the backward castes. Thus, these institutes are in favor to continue admission process according to this rule only. With these orders, the general category seats have increased almost by 50%. But the agitation of backward category students was seen in the form of protest, which enforced the government to move to SC. The protest was supported by Maharashtra Navnirman Vidyarthi Sena to ensure justice for backward caste students.

The dissension started with 2005 amendment in the constitution by congress government. Which pronounced to have the maximum 50% of reservation in the minority institutes. Whereas, the circular issued by Mumbai University 16 years ago stated that there should be seats set aside for backward category students. Further, in 2005 orders, it was decided that there will be no reserved seats for SC/ST Candidates in the minority institutes. But in 2017, Bombay high Court scrapped the circular by the university and declared no reservation for the minority community.

In Maharashtra, there are a total of 2800+ minority educational institutes in which 300 are in Mumbai. The recent order also created conundrum when it was asked to all the minority institutes to show the data of the students admitted in the last three years under 50% reservation policy. In the current reservation policy, if there are 100 seats, then 15 are set aside for management quota. Further, 42 is kept for minority students, first for in-house candidates and then outsiders and rest of seats for the general candidates.

The statement of the secretary of the Minority Colleges, Sunil Mantri, said that they will support the court rulings to conduct admission without the reservation of seats in the institutes. Moreover, St Xavier’s College and Maharashtra Association of Minority Educational Institutions also supports the 2017 court ruling.