HYDERABAD: Ruling that institutions are not obligated to respond individually to unsuccessful candidates in large-scale admission processes, the Telangana High Court has dismissed a writ petition filed by Kataru Satya Sai challenging the admission process for MBA programmes at Indian Institute of Management Mumbai based on his CAT-2025 performance.
Justice Nagesh Bheemapaka held that the petitioner’s claim, seeking shortlisting for the personal interview stage based on an overall percentile of 99.52, was untenable as he failed to meet the mandatory sectional cut-off in Data Interpretation & Logical Reasoning.
The petitioner had secured 92.87 percentile in DI&LR, falling short of the prescribed 93.50 percentile cut-off for the general (male) category. The court observed that merely clearing overall or minimum thresholds does not confer an enforceable right to proceed in a competitive selection process, particularly where admission policies permit higher cut-offs depending on applicant volume.
Rejecting allegations of arbitrariness and discrimination, the court noted that similarly cited candidates had scored well above the sectional cut-off, negating any claim of unequal treatment. It further held that academic standards and cut-off determinations fall within the exclusive domain of expert bodies and are not subject to judicial interference unless shown to be mala fide or illegal.
On the issue of maintainability under Article 226 of the Constitution, the court observed that even assuming the petition was maintainable, no legal or fundamental right of the petitioner had been violated.
Concluding that the selection process was transparent, objective, and uniformly applied, the Court dismissed the writ petition, holding that it sought to convert a merit-based competitive process into a matter of right, contrary to established admission policy.