“Not everyone has multiple credit cards”: Supreme Court comes to rescue of student who was denied admission to IIT due to non-payment of fees

A Supreme Court bench of Justices Chandrachud and Bopanna today invoked the inherent powers of the court under Article 142 of the constitution to create a seat for a Student at IIT-Bombay. The student lost his seat despite having cleared the requisite entrance exam since he could not pay the fees due to a bank issue. 

On the last date of hearing, the Supreme Court had directed the counsel for IIT to get instructions from the institution as to whether something could be done at this stage. Sonal Jain, advocate, appearing for IIT today submitted that all the seats have been filled up, however the court may pass directions under Article 142 to grant the student a fee. 

Justice Chandrachud on hearing the submission remarked "You must have a more robust system. Everybody does not have a multiple credit card. There has to be some modality to deal with these cases, students work hard all year and finally something silly like this happens." 

The court after contemplating, granted leave and noted that, the appellant appeared for the JEE (MAIN) examination in May 2021 and having qualified, he appeared on 3rd October for IIT-JEE entrance test. The court further noted that he secured an all India rank of 864 within students belonging to Scheduled Casts. On 27th October the petitioner was allocated a seat at IIT-Bombay. The JOSAA portal was activated on 29th October 2021, it included fee payment document upload and response by candidate to queries, the court noted in its order.

The court took note of the fact that the candidate was unable to make up funds and hence had to borrow from his sister. Having made the arrangements for funds, he made about 10-12 attempts to pay however he could not due to an error on the server. He followed this up with email from 31 October to 1st November however the authorities told him that they could not help him at his juncture. 

The  court noted the candidate approached a Division Bench of Bombay  under Article 226 to facilitate his admission. Following an unsuccessful pursuit of his legal rights, he had to approach the Supreme Court. The bench remarked "This court has before it a young Dalit student who is on the verge of losing a valued seat!"

The court held that  It will be a travesty of justice if he is turned away and owing to the above facts and circumstance it found t a fit court to invoke Article 142 is warranted at interim stage. However the creation of this seat is subject to the admission of the candidate being regularised or any other seat falling vacant. IIT was also directed to implement this order on or before the next 48 hours.

Case title: Prince Jaibir Singh Vs Union of India