MUMBAI: The Bombay high court on Monday allowed a BA student from Mumbai University to participate in the online Centralized Admission Process (CAP) for 2023 for LLB- three year degree course, despite the final semester results not yet being declared as the last date for such registration was July 3.
The bench of Justices Gautam Patel and Neela Gokhale on Monday disposing of the petition by the student, said it was permitting him to participate to give him an opportunity so that a year is not lost., However the court clarified that the admission, if any, would be subject to his final results and if he fails, no equities can be claimed by him and he would stand to lose the seat.
Siddharth Singh in his petition through Abhijeet Desai, said without his semester six result of BA (economics) and ATKT (Allowed to keep Term) re-examination and its result, he was unable to register though he had passed the Common Entrance Test (CET) for LLB course.
Mumbai University counsel Rui Rodrigues , in his submissions before the bench, said the online admission process is in phases and the CAP rounds will start only after July 15.
Rodrigues added that final semester six results for BA degree course in Mumbai University will be declared by July 15
Due to wrong entry by students in the Online Screen Marking (OSM) format, result of hundreds of students of Semester 5 BA results were kept on hold this year in the first offline exam after Covid Pandemic, counsel for the Director of Examination and Evaluation informed the Bombay HC on Monday. Rodrigue said the data entry error in the OSM by students of BA fifth semester led to need for physical and manual verification of their answer scripts due to which a new revised exam schedule for fifth semester ATKT (allowed to keep term) students could not be announced as yet. The submission was made in a petition filed by a student who sought permission to file his application in the online process.
Rodrigues said the OSM was newly introduced hence had “teething problems’’ as large number of students fumbled with data entry of subject and other codes, in the first offline exam post pandemic.
While BA (Psychology) semester five results were declared on April 15 and May 26, due to incorrect entry of seat numbers, bar code and subject codes results of 750 students were kept on hold and later, after physical verification, 550 results were declared. Around 170 answer scripts are still being verified and will be completed shortly, said Rodrigues.
The re-examination date for ATKT BA students not declared due to the pending verifications is likely to be announced later this month. Rodrigues explained July 3 deadline is only for online registration for certain category of students including those from Maharashtra and continues in phases after which CAP rounds will only start after July 15.
The court also hear counsel Dhruti Kapadia for the State CET Cell.
Rodrigues also submitted, which the court took into consideration, that the Pune University results exams are still going on and Solapur University as well as Nagpur University results are not declared yet.
