Jamia VC names 17 students for admission to schools: RTI

In a violation to the university statutes, Jamia Millia Islamia Vice-Chancellor Talat Ahmad nominated 17 students for admission to Jamia schools during 2015-16, an RTI query has revealed.

In response to an RTI query filed by Sukhdev Jain, the university has said, “For the academic session 2015-16, total of 980 candidates were admitted in Jamia schools, of whom 17 were granted admission on the recommendation of the Vice-Chancellor”.

In the same response, the university has also admitted that “there is no Circular/Order/Memo/Notice or Resolution explicitly empowering the Vice-Chancellor, who is the Principal Executive and Academic Officer of the university, to nominate candidates for admission on rolls of Jamia schools”. 

There are five schools run by the Jamia administration – Jamia Senior Secondary School, Syed Abid Hussain Senior Secondary School (self-finance), Jamia Girls Senior Secondary School, Jamia Middle School and Mushir Fatma Nursery School. Admissions to these schools are made on the basis of performance in a written test and an interview.

The RTI response maintained that the recommendations are “marginal” and have had no impact on the sanctioned strength of admissions.

“Admissions for sanctioned strength of intake of seats in the Jamia Schools is not disturbed by any marginal recommendations by the Vice-Chancellor for admission over and above the sanctioned intake in any special exceptional cases,” it added. The university authorities, however, maintained that though there is no official rule, the Vice-Chancellor has an “implied” discretion to do so.

“There is an implied discretion that the Vice-Chancellor can recommend admissions in exceptional cases vis-a-vis students coming from exceptionally weaker sections of society or first generation learners in pursuit of community development,” Jamia spokesperson Mukesh Ranjan said.

The issue of “backdoor entries” to Jamia schools also figures in the allegations raised by Obaid Siddiqui, a Mass Communication professor, in his petition to President Pranab Mukherjee, who is Visitor to the university.