St Stephen’s releases Christian student list after allegations of quota breach

NEW DELHI: Amid an ongoing conflict between Delhi University and St Stephen’s College over the selection process for candidates in reserved seats, St Stephen’s College has published a list of Christian students who have been offered admission on its official website.

Admissions to any DU program are managed through the university’s Common Seat Allotment System (CSAS) portal, where colleges must submit and verify their allocations before they are uploaded to the centralized portal.

On Monday, DU released the allocation list for Christian candidates in minority colleges, including Jesus and Mary College. However, regarding allocations for St Stephen’s College, another minority institution under DU, the university cited the identification of certain “crucial and alarming aspects” in the list submitted by the college, preventing it from proceeding with the allocations.

The university also accused St Stephen’s College of exceeding the sanctioned quota for Christian candidates in its revised seat allocation list, and leaving some seats in a few BA courses vacant despite candidates meeting the required criteria based on CUET scores.

“The allocations have to be uploaded on the CSAS portal. Students are required to make the payment there. We have a system in place and if anyone violates the university rules, the DU will not be responsible. Students have to be careful,” DU registar Vikas

Gupta stated.

There was no response from St Stephen’s College Principal John Varghese or admissions in-charge Sanjay Kumar on the development.

Attempts to seek the college’s version on the allegations on different occasions earlier did not elicit any response.

The Delhi University and St Stephen’s have been at loggerheads for long over autonomy of the college. This year, the two sides levelled allegations against each other, after the college refused admission to 12 single-girl child students who had sought admission through DU’s newly introduced quota for them.

The college has maintained the DU asked them to admit students beyond their seat capacity.

The Delhi High Court on August 29 -- the day when classes for the new academic session began -- barred six students from attending classes till further order after providing them provisional admission in the college.

On August 23, a single-judge bench had granted relief to these students while noting that there was no fault of these students who had successfully cleared the CUET exam and other formalities and despite being meritorious, they were being kept under suspense regarding the fate of their admission. With agency inputs