Delhi University says St Stephen’s exceeded quota for Christian seats

Delhi University (DU) has said that it found "crucial and alarming aspects" in the initial list sent by St Stephen's College for the allocation of seats to Christian candidates in the college because of which the university could not proceed with allocations. In the revised seat allocation list, the college exceeded the sanctioned quota for Christian candidates, claims DU.

The university will now do further validations on the latest list sent by the college. A notification issued by DU stated, "The college had sent the list of the candidates, programme-wise, to DU on Aug 28. While doing the first step of validation of the list sent by St Stephen's, the university identified certain crucial and alarming aspects owing to which the list could not proceed for the allocations. Clarification was sought from the college immediately."

A senior DU official said there were certain discrepancies in the list sent by St Stephen's College, like "wrong form numbers, seats left vacant, specific BA programme combinations not mentioned, etc."

Although the college never specified the reason for cancelling its orientation programme, a source in St Stephen's had stated that it had "not conducted the programme as seats were not allocated to Christian candidates by DU." St Stephen's College principal John Varghese was not available for comment.

The DU notification further stated, "The principal of St Stephen's College reverted at 4.34pm on Aug 31 and agreed to the identified mismatches. The college revised the list and it was received on Aug 31."
According to the DU official, even the second list sent by the college was not clear. "In certain BA programme combinations, no seat has been allocated, while in some, more than sanctioned seats were allocated to Christian candidates. Similarly, in some sought-after programmes like BSc (H) chemistry and BSc (H) physics, seats have been left vacant despite having CUET-qualified candidates," the notification added.

Meanwhile, the university notified the allocation of Christian candidates shortlisted by Jesus and Mary College (JMC) and gave a schedule for them to complete their admission process. A senior DU official said, "We faced no problems with JMC. They gave all the data properly, so we were able to allocate the seats."

The official added, "With regard to JMC, only the allocation of one student is stuck as both Stephen's and JMC gave seats to her."
The JMC candidates have time till 4.59pm on Wednesday to ‘accept' the allocated seat. According to the university notification, the college will have time from 1pm on Sept 2 till 4.59pm on Sept 5 to verify and approve the online applications. The last date of online payment of fees by the candidate to confirm their admission is Sept 6, till 4.59pm