The Supreme Court, by setting an example, instructed IIT Dhanbad to grant Atul Kumar admission to the Electrical Engineering course. The Dalit youth had lost his hard-earned IIT Dhanbad seat after missing the deadline to deposit Rs 17,500 admission fees by few minutes. Observing that “a talented student like the petitioner should not be left in the lurch”, a bench headed by Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud kept its promise to help the youth and took recourse of Article 142 of the Constitution to order the IIT Dhanbad to grant him the admission in the Electrical Engineering course.
“All the best! Acha kariye! (do well)" the CJI said and asked him about his siblings who are also pursuing engineering in other colleges.
The SC also asked counsel from IIT Seat Allocation Authority on its protest for his admission. "Why are you opposing so much? You should see if something could be done," the bench said, adding that here is a son of a daily wager who belongs to a marginalised section of the society and a BPL (below poverty line) family. The counsel for IIT Seat Allocation Authority said the login details of the candidate that he was logged in at 3 pm which proved that it was not a last-minute log-in as claimed. The counsel said that repeated reminders through SMS and WhatsApp were also sent to the candidate.
Earlier, Kumar had said that his parents failed to deposit the fees and had approached various authorities, including the National Commission for Scheduled Castes, Jharkhand Legal Services Authority and the Madras high court, to save the hard-earned seat. Kumar, son of a daily wager, hails from a BPL family living at Titora village in Muzaffarnagar district of Uttar Pradesh.
Celebrations erupted in Titora village of this district after the Supreme Court ruling. Rash Devi, the mother of Atul, said, "We are very happy that the Supreme Court directed the institute to give admission to my son." Amit Kumar, the brother of the Dalit student, also expressed happiness.
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