OBC quota not to be implemented this year

Chetan Chauhan, Saroj Nagi and Mou Chakraborty
New Delhi, April 26, 2007

STUDENTS WILL be admitted to central institutes, including IIMs, on last year’s pattern. A decision on admitting OBC students will be taken on May 8, the date for the Supreme Court hearing on the quota for such students. UPA and Left leaders approved this formula at a meeting on Thursday and the HRD ministry is expected to issue a directive to all institutes on Friday.
Admissions to IIMs are expected to start on Monday. “The IIMs were told to finalise the admission process. They can notify candidates for admission,” a ministry official said.
“Our results are ready. If the letter arrives on Friday, the IIMs may take a decision to post on the Internet that very night or by the next morning,” Ashish Bhattacharya, chairman of admissions at IIM-Calcutta.
Offer letters will follow the Internet posting, but students will have less time to decide whether to accept. “Normally students get three weeks to confirm they will take admission; this time it does not look like they will get more than two weeks,” Bhattacharya said.
The formula accepted by the meeting was that the new seats for OBCs (reserved) and other students (increased) would not be filled at one go. In all, 124,377 general and SC/ST students will get admission now while a decision on 12,216 others will be taken till May 8.
IIMs will admit 1350 students and 157 seats will remain vacant. IIM-C, which will fill 300 seats, will leave 18 vacant. At IITs, some postgraduate seats in IITs will be filled with undergraduate admissions scheduled for late May.
At the UPA-Left meeting, the government justified its earlier decision to withhold the results. The objective, a government note said, was to avoid an adverse effect on the Centre’s case in court and to ensure an early hearing. That objective had been achieved with a date fixed for the hearing, the note said. Hence, central institutes could be advised to admit those students who would not be affected by the court’s order.
HRD minister Arjun Singh, who chaired the meeting, first met leaders of UPA allies and tried to convince them about the ministry’s viewpoint. After the meeting, he briefed the Prime Minister.
The meeting was stormy. The DMK, the PMK and the RJD initially opposed admission, saying it would ease pressure on the Supreme Court. They later relented when Arjun pointed out that it involved the fate of a large majority of students. Byt they expressed concern about the effect of staggering the admission process.
They also asked if the government had a second option if the court did not vacate the stay on the OBC quota. The CPI(M) too raised the question. “If the stay is not vacated, the government will have to make another assertion, perhaps through another decision, another law and another constitutional amendment,” Sitaram Yechury said.
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