Calcutta, May 14: The high court has stayed Thursday’s interview at IIM Calcutta to choose candidates from the OBC quota for its post-graduate course.
If the stay is not lifted soon — the Centre is expected to move court as early as tomorrow — it could delay OBC admissions in other IIMs, too, as the same order covers a memorandum issued by the Union human resource development ministry to introduce the 27 per cent quota.
The IIMs — Bangalore and Ahmedabad have already conducted one round of interviews — are learnt to have decided to put the OBC lists on hold till the stay is vacated.
The stay issued by Justice Maharaja Sinha will be in force till June 9 unless overturned before that. The court will hear the case next on June 2.
Calcutta High Court issued the order on a petition filed by Sayan Guha, who claimed that he had obtained 89 per cent marks in the Common Admission Test but did not get admission.
His lawyer Nilava Banerjee said the quota violated “a Supreme Court judgment that observed graduates should be considered as educationally forward class and they should not get admissions in post-graduate courses with the help of the quota system”.
However, the Union ministry’s lawyers said the Supreme Court had made only an observation during the verdict clearing the quotas and such suggestions could not be construed as a binding judgment.
The petitioner had issued notices to both respondents — IIM Calcutta and the ministry — but none appeared on their behalf. The court has directed the respondents to take part in the next hearing.
At a meeting late this evening, the Union ministry’s officials decided to seek a prompt vacation of the stay. The Centre and IIM Calcutta can move either the same court — as the order was issued in their absence — or a division bench of the high court or the Supreme Court. A similar petition is pending before Delhi High Court.
The Centre can draw the Chief Justice of India’s attention to the Calcutta order and, on a oral request from one of its law officers, get the stay vacated from the apex court.
