Delhi HC Orders a Stay on NLU’s 50% Reservation for Delhi-based Applicants, Admission Deadline Pushed by a Week

On Monday, 29 June 2020, Delhi High Court ordered a stay of proceedings for reserving 50% seats in National Law University (NLU), Delhi for its city-based students in B.A. L.L.B. and L.L.M. courses.

Earlier, NLU had mentioned in its official notification, reserving 50% of seats for applicants from National Capital Territory who pass the institute's qualifying exams.

The reservations for NLU Admissions 2020 will be based on domicile criteria and the rule was initiated at the university for the current year. 

In the current order, Delhi High Court directed NIRF 2nd ranking Law Institute, NLU to maintain its status quo for L.L.B., L.L.M admissions in-line with its previous year’s.

Justice Subramaniam Prasad and Hima Kohli from the division bench stated: 'The University is directed to bring out a fresh admission notification before 2nd July and is also directed to publish the same on its website. 

A further one week period is given to enable the students to apply afresh who may be interested in applying for the admission process.'

As of now, examinations will be held at the previously mentioned dates. Other issues will be dealt with on 18 August 2020. NLU is about to conduct AILET 2020 tentatively from August 8, 2020. 

The stay of proceedings was ordered as a follow-up to Pia Singh’s petition claiming that University’s decision to reserve 50% seats for Delhi-based students is against article 15(3) and even at odds with all social or logical norms. 

Also, introducing 22% reservation for OBC and 10% for EWS categories without increasing seats is a violation of MHRD mandates.

Adding to this, petitioner averred, for NLU 2019-2020 admissions, out of 70 seats in L.L.M., vertically reservations were conferred in the ratio: 15% for SC, 7.5% for ST and horizontally as 5% for PWD.

The e-prospectus was released by NLU for 2020 admissions on March 3, 2020.