The Supreme Court has come to the rescue of an18-year-old, son of a dalit daily wager from Uttar Pradesh, who was denied admission to IIT Dhanbad for narrowly missing the deadline for depositing his acceptance fee of Rs 17,500.
The bench of CJI D Y Chandrachud and Justices JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra did not require persuasion to entertain Atul Kumar’s writ petition seeking admission, and sought response from Joint Seat Allocation Authority, IIT Admissions, IIT Madras, which had conducted this year’s exam.
Atul cleared the JEE Advanced to bag an electrical engineering seat in IIT Dhanbad, but the BPL family from UP’s Muzaffarnagar district could not arrange the fee amount within the stiff deadline of four days.
After knocking the doors of National Commission for Scheduled Castes, Jharkhand Legal Services Authority and Madras high court – to save the hard-earned seat, Atul moved the SC, urging that it step in to save his dream to pull his family out of poverty.
He told a bench that he had cleared JEE Advanced in his second and last attempt, and that unless the court directed his admission, he would not be able take another shot at the coveted seat.
Bearing in mind the hardship the meritorious boy had gone through, the CJI had a word of comfort, “We will help you as far as possible. But what were you doing for the last three months as the fee deposit deadline expired on June 24?”
The boy’s counsel narrated the grim battle waged by him, his brother and parents to accomplish the Herculean task of arranging Rs 17,500 by 5 pm of June 24, that too in just four days after allotment of the seat in IIT Dhanbad.
His father Rajendra, a daily wager, took financial support from friends and relatives to enable Atul to complete his school education.
Rajendra could arrange the money in Atul’s brother’s bank account by 4.45 pm on June 24. Racing against time, Atul uploaded the requisite documents on the admission website but by the time he proceeded to pay the fee, the clock had ticked past 5 pm. The portal would not accept the fee deposit and the seat allotted to him was cancelled.
He approached National Commission for Scheduled Castes, which expressed its inability to help him. As he had taken JEE at a centre in Jharkhand, he sought help from Jharkhand State Legal Services Authority to file a petition in HC. But he was advised to move Madras HC as it was IIT Madras that had conducted the exam. HC, in turn, directed him to SC.
Must be recalled that in November 2021 too, the SC had come to the rescue of a dalit student in a case of similar nature. The student who could not get admission to IIT-Bombay as he was unable to pay the admission fee on time due to technical glitches while using a credit card. The SC, invoking its powers under Article 142 of the Constitution had then directed the authorities to create a seat for him within 48 hours.
A bench of Justices DY Chandrachud and AS Bopanna had asked the Joint Seat Allocation Authority (JoSAA), which manages and regulates the admissions, to allot a seat to the student, Prince. The bench had said that “it would be a great travesty of justice if the young Dalit student is denied admission for non-payment of fees”.
“This court has before it a young Dalit student, who is on the verge of losing a valued seat which has been allocated in IIT-Bombay. The travails of the appellant have taken him from Allahabad, where he is presently studying, to Kharagpur (which organised JEE-Advanced this year) and then to Mumbai and eventually to the national capital. Having regard to facts of the case, it would be a great travesty of justice if the young Dalit student is denied admission for non-payment of fees to IIT-Bombay after having tried to do so. Hence, we are of the view that it is a fit case of Article 142 in the interim stage,” the bench had said.
Prince had said in his petition that he logged into the JoSAA site October 29 and uploaded the documents as required. “However, the seat acceptance fee payment could not be done” that day as he “was falling short of money and therefore, his sister transferred money to his account on” October 30, the petition said.
He attempted “about 10 to 12 times to make payment” on October 30 but “was unable to make the payment due to a technical error at the end of his card issuing bank, viz., State Bank of India”, the petition said.
On October 31 (2021), Prince “attempted to make payment by visiting a cyber café however all the attempts…failed and the petitioner was unable to make the seat acceptance fee payment within the stipulated time,” the petition said.
The UP resident then wrote emails to JoSAA and IIT-Bombay but to no avail. He also visited JoSAA physically but no help was forthcoming, the petition said. Prince approached the Bombay HC but his plea was dismissed, it said.
Justice Chandrachud had told the authorities in his judgement: “You must have a robust mechanism. Everyone does not have multiple credit cards. They study for the IIT entrance for so long, and the student is deprived of admission! There has to be some modality, else only students from metropolitan cities will join IITs.”
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