NEW DELHI: The Delhi Tamil Students’ Association (DTSA) has filed a writ petition against the University of Delhi, demanding to include languages in Eighth Schedule of the Constitution as a part of the list of subjects considered for calculation of the “best of four” marks.
The “best of four” marks determine the aggregate score for admission and other related and consequential reliefs. The petition was filed at on Wednesday by DTSA, represented by its president Sharavena.
The association said that the university’s action results “in the violation of Article 14 of Constitution of India which guarantees equality and equal protection of laws as well as that of Article 29(2) which guarantees that no citizen shall be denied admission into any educational institution maintained by the State or receiving aid out of State funds on grounds only of religion, race, caste, language or any of them”. For admission to arts Honours programmes, the merit is determined on the basis of one language from a designated list and three best academic or elective subjects.
The list of languages are Arabic, English, Italian, Bengali, French, Sanskrit, Persian, Spanish, German, Hindi, Urdu and Punjabi. The languages included in the 8th Schedule of the Constitution are not a part of the list of languages considered by the university.
“That’s why the aspiring students who include languages such as Tamil, Telugu, Odia, Kannada, Marathi and Malayalam in their best of four are being subjected to a 2.5 per cent deduction in their aggregate marks, because these languages are not “academic subjects” listed by the University,” Sharavena said.