Principals and managements of minority colleges in the city are piqued as a circular issued by the University of Mumbai recently asked the colleges to include the 15 per cent management quota seats in the 50 per cent minority quota itself.
When confronted, University officials said that there had been a mistake in the circular and the rights of minority institutions would be reinstated.
According to the old rule, managements were allowed to keep aside 15 per cent of the seats before implementing the minority quota wherein colleges were permitted to fill up 50 per cent of its seats with students from the minority community. The remaining 50 per cent of the seats would then be kept for the open, SC/ST, sports and other categories as per the percentages allotted to each one of them. However, the circular asked the colleges to combine both the management and minority quota, thus, reducing the number of seats that would be made available for students from the minority quota for admissions to the first year of degree college.
“We admitted students based on the 50 per cent minority quota rule in FYJC. Almost each of those students have again applied for admission to the first year. Now, if the seats are reduced, how do we accommodate them? According to the new rule, we are expected to turn away in-house students as the University wants us to cut down 15 per cent of the seats,” said the principal of a suburban college.
The issue was taken up by activists of Maharashtra Navnirman Vidyarthi Sena (MNVS), who visited the University and met the registrar and the vice-chancellor and apprised them of the problem. “The matter was taken seriously and the circular was verified. We even handed them a 2004 circular of the MU based on a Supreme Court order. We were told that there had been a mistake and it would be rectified,” said Santosh Gangurde, vice-president of the student wing of the University.
When contacted, Dr M.A. Khan, MU registrar said, “It was just a typo error, which was misinterpreted. The same was brought to our notice. We will rectify the circular.”