MUMBAI: The Bombay High Court has come to the rescue of a city resident who was denied an electrical engineering degree despite successfully completing the course from an institute in Ratnagiri because of the recent scrapping of a 5% quota for 51 Muslim communities.
A division bench of justices RI Chagla and Advait Sethna has ordered the University of Mumbai (MU) and the Finolex Academy of Management and Technology in Ratnagiri, where petitioner Farukh Ilahi Sayyad studied, to release his final semester result and leaving certificate, and also issue him a degree.
The case pertains to the Maharashtra government’s decision in 2014 to introduce 5% reservation in education and public employment for 51 backward Muslim communities via an ordinance, which was never formally enacted and eventually lapsed. In February this year, the state government officially revoked the Special Backward Class (A) quota. However, between the lapse of the 2014 ordinance and the official revocation 12 years later, state departments continued issuing caste validation certificates under the quota.
In his petition, Sayyad stated that he had obtained a caste certificate in July 2014 under the ordinance and had secured admission to the second year of a degree course in electrical engineering at the college in Ratnagiri. He already had a diploma in electrical engineering.
Sayyad successfully completed the course in 2017. However, the college and the university allegedly withheld his final year result and degree certificate for want of a caste validity certificate. Earlier this year, Sayyad then applied to the Caste Scrutiny Committee for the validation of his caste certificate, but the panel stated that it could not process his application because the 5% quota was no longer in effect.
Sayyad then approached the high court, submitting that he had been suffering immense hardship, as he was forced to work in a lower-level job in Dubai solely on the basis of his diploma. Despite being a qualified engineer, he was unable to secure work commensurate with his qualifications due to the lack of a final-semester mark sheet and degree certificate.
After a government pleader informed the court that the ordinance providing for the 5% quota had lapsed and that the reservation provision had ended with it, Sayyad pointed out that he had not availed of any other benefit of the 5% quota and had even paid the fees payable by open category candidates. He also produced fee receipts in support of his claim and offered to pay any additional required charges.
The bench accepted the petitioner’s statement, ordering the university and the engineering college to release his final semester mark list, degree certificate and leaving certificate on payment of any additional fees if required. A detailed court order is not yet available.
