OBC Quota in Delhi University (DU) | OBC Undergraduate Seats in Delhi University Remains Unfilled - A question of eligibility

The OBC quota of undergraduate seats in Delhi University remains unfilled as the government and Delhi University (DU) wrangle about the eligibility criteria.

While the Ministry of Human Development Resource Development (MHRD) is pushing DU to fill the 27 per cent OBC quota in undergraduate admissions, DU cannot seem to find enough OBC students who meet its eligibility criteria even after five rounds of admissions.

The ministry is insisting that DU fill the OBC quota by admitting the best-scoring OBC students so long as they passed the class 12 exam, but the university is insisting on the court-fixed concession of 10 per cent on its merit category eligibility.

Responding to the ministry’s pressure, the university has provided a list of merit-category eligibility marks for different courses. For example, DU’s eligibility marks for the honours courses in the BA and the B Com streams are 45 per cent and for most of the B Sc honours courses they are 50-60 per cent.

DU’s argument is that it is following the Delhi High Court order of September 2010 which had pegged the eligibility criteria for the OBC students at 10 per cent below the eligibility criteria for the ‘general category’ students.

At the same time, DU is not in favour of applying the 2008 ruling of Supreme Court on admissions to the Central Universities, which said that the OBC students be given a concession of 10 per cent on the ‘cut off’ applicable to the merit category.

DU has pleaded to the Supreme Court in a case questioning the High Court order that it would be impossible to meet the OBC quota obligations if the ‘cut off’ criterion was followed, given the 80-90 per cent cut offs at the university.

In 2010-11, nearly half of the 7,500 odd OBC seats in DU were converted to open seats because not enough OBC students met the concessional eligibility criteria.

As the stalemate persists, interested political outfits are staging protests against the DU vice chancellor and MHRD plans to approach the Supreme Court to resolve the conflict between ‘cut off’ and ‘eligibility’ orders.

People found this page through these queries -
OBC quota, Delhi University Admisisons, DU CUT-OFFS, delhi university 2011 admissions