NEW DELHI: Taking humanitarian approach in the case of a 17-year-old meritorious Scheduled Caste student, the Supreme Court on Monday exercised its extraordinary powers and directed IIT-Bombay to create a seat for him.
The court felt it was a fit occasion for using special powers under Article 142 of the Constitution — a rarely used provision — which allows it to pass any order necessary to do complete justice in any case.
Prince Jaibir Singh from Allahabad was eligible for civil engineering at IIT-Bombay after clearing JEE Advanced 2021 with an all-India rank of 25,894 and Scheduled Caste category rank of 864. But he had missed out on the seat due to non-payment of fees because of technical and server error. Singh had then approached the Bombay High Court which refused to hear his petition.
A bench comprising Justices D Y Chandrachud and A S Bopanna said it would be a great travesty of justice if Singh was denied admission. The court then directed the Joint Seat Allocation Authority (JOSAA) to earmark a seat within 48 hours and clarified that it should be allocated to Singh without disturbing the admission of any other student.
During the hearing last week, Justice Chandrachud had remarked, “Here is a Dalit boy who has made it to the IIT. How many students are able to achieve that? He may rise to lead the country in the next 10 years! Now, he is losing out on his seat for no fault of his. While he may be ousted on a point of law, on humanitarian grounds, sometimes, we have to rise above the law.”
On Monday, the court told the authorities to be humane. “Don’t be wooden like this. He cleared the exam last year, he cleared it this year... He just couldn’t pay the fee in time. Deal with him with a humanitarian approach. You have to look at what the reality on the ground is, the reality of our social life. This is not some case where the student has been negligent or at fault. This is a genuine case.”
When the JOSAA informed that no vacant seats were available for the course, the court passed the order for seat allotment under Article 142. It said many seats get vacant after students take admission in different institutes and the IIT should look and allot one such seat to this student.
His last chance
The bench noted that if the petitioner Prince Jaibir Singh, who secured All India Rank 864 in the SC category in the IIT entrance exam, is not admitted in this academic year, he will be ineligible to appear for further entrance exams as he has appeared in two consecutive attempts.