New Delhi: Delhi High Court Tuesday permitted Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) to continue with the admission process for its postgraduate courses, which was earlier halted by a single-judge bench over a challenge to the award of ‘deprivation points’ to certain candidates.Deprivation points are awarded to candidates belonging to certain geographical locations considered disadvantageous so that they get an equal shot at admission.A bench of Chief Justice DK Upadhyaya and Justice Tejas Karia modified the single judge’s order passed earlier, but made it clear that the admissions would be subject to the outcome of the challenge.A single judge had halted admissions based on deprivation points following a petition by Amit Mehra, who is seeking admission to a postgraduate course in the university. The judge had ordered that the admissions shall not be finalised and no further steps would be taken in this regard till Aug 24.Dealing with JNU’s appeal against the order, the division bench observed that the practice of awarding deprivation points had been present since 1974 and the entire admission process had been “put to a halt” due to the single judge’s direction.The court noted that the e-prospectus for the academic year 2026-27 was issued on April 3 and the admission process began on May 25. Classes for postgraduate students who took admission after the first round of counselling also began on July 30, the court observed, as it remarked that the petition should not have been filed at the last minute, but before the admission process started.It also questioned how an interim stay could be sustained in the absence of a prima facie finding in favour of such a relief, while noting that the petitioner was himself an interested candidate.“The university shall carry on with the admission process as per the provisions in the e-prospectus, including the provisions which are under challenge before the single judge. However, any admission hence made will be subject to the outcome of the writ petition,” the bench ordered, asking the single judge to decide the petition as early as possible.Defending the earlier order, Mehra argued that deprivation points made the score obtained by a candidate in the CUET ineffective.JNU’s counsel submitted that the single judge’s order had brought the ongoing admission process to a standstill. One of the objectives in JNU Act, he said, is to ensure representation of teachers and students from across the country, and the system of deprivation points was designed to further this goal.
