High Court Questions MNLU Nagpur Over Alleged Diversion of Reserved Ph.D Seats

In Dipak Namdev Kharat v. MNLU Nagpur through its Vice-Chancellor, Nagpur & Ors, the Bombay High Court at Nagpur has sought a response from Maharashtra National Law University, Nagpur over a challenge to its Ph.D admissions for the coming academic year. The case raises serious questions about whether reserved seats were wrongly diverted to the unreserved category.

A Bench of Justices Anil L. Pansare and Nivedita P. Mehta issued notice in the matter and said it would hear the university’s stand at the next hearing. The plea has been filed by a student who claims the admission process ignored the reservation matrix mentioned in the official notification.

The petitioner said he had applied for the Ph.D programme under the Nomadic Tribe-C category, for which one seat had been specifically reserved. He was later called for an interview. However, when the provisional admission list was released, that seat was allegedly given to a student from the unreserved category.

After this, the student approached the university with his grievance. According to the plea, the Convenor of the Doctoral Council informed him that a sub-committee would look into the issue and make recommendations. But before any such recommendations were acted upon, the Ph.D course reportedly commenced.

This led the student to move the High Court. He has sought quashing of the provisional admission list and has also asked the Court to direct the university to conduct the admission process again in accordance with the reservation rules mentioned in the official admission notification.

The petition states that MNLU Nagpur had advertised 35 seats and had clearly provided for Maharashtra State reservation. Yet, the provisional list, according to the petitioner, does not reflect that structure. The plea alleges that despite five seats being reserved for Scheduled Castes, two for Scheduled Tribes and four for SEBC candidates, not a single candidate from these categories was selected.

The challenge also claims that the university failed to fill seats earmarked for De-notified Tribes (A), Nomadic Tribes (C), and Nomadic Tribes (D), even though one seat each had been allocated to these categories. This, the petitioner argues, shows a complete breakdown of the notified reservation scheme.

One of the most serious allegations in the plea is that the university admitted 22 students in the unreserved category, even though only 12 such seats had been advertised. If correct, this would mean that seats meant for reserved category candidates were absorbed into the general pool.

For now, the High Court has not expressed any final view on the merits of the dispute. But by seeking MNLU Nagpur’s response, it has opened judicial scrutiny into whether the university’s Ph.D admission process was carried out lawfully and fairly.