Date:26/07/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/07/26/stories/2008072656550400.htm

New Delhi

DSGMC, 4 DU colleges’ application dismissed

Staff Reporter

Seeking exemption from reservation to OBCs in admission

‘The petitioners shall be bound to implement the reservation policy of the government’
The colleges argued that they were minority institutions

NEW DELHI: The Delhi High Court on Friday dismissed an application filed by the Delhi Sikh Gurdwara Management Committee and four colleges of Delhi University managed by it seeking exemption from giving 27 per cent reservation in admission to Other Backward Classes’ candidates in under-graduate courses on the ground that they being minority institutions were statutorily protected from implementing it.

The petitioners—DSGMC, Shri Guru Govind Singh College of Commerce, Mata Sundri College for Women, Shri Guru Tegh Bahadur Khalsa College and Shri Guru Nanak Dev P.G. College—had filed the application seeking a stay on a direction by the University asking them to implement the reservation in admissions.

The colleges argued that they were minority institutions under the National Commission for Minority Educational Institutions Act, 2004, and the Central Educational Institutions (Reservations in Admission) Act, 2006.

Dismissing the application, Justice Vipin Sanghi said: “The petitioners shall be bound to implement the reservation policy of the Government of India in respect of OBCs by providing 27 per cent reservation while admitting students to the courses run by them, pending disposal of their joint petition on their claimed minority status.”

Since the petitioner institutions did not provide for reservation in admission to students of the Sikh community, one of the three essential requirements for being qualified as a minority institution, these colleges did not qualify for the protection granted to minority educational institutions under Article 30 (1) of the Constitution, Mr. Justice Sanghi observed.

The petitioners’ counsel, K.T.S. Tulsi, also admitted in his submission that these institutions did not provide for reservation to students belonging to the Sikh community as the community does not believe in it.

The Court has been hearing a joint petition by the petitioners submitting that they are minority institutions and, therefore, are exempt from State interference in their management.