Stating that all admissions to Hindu College were made “as per the guidelines of the university”, chairman of the college governing body on Wednesday defended the college’s decision to scrap admissions under Extra Curricular Activities (ECA) category.
“All admissions to Hindu College are made as per university guidelines, which contain a clause — ‘colleges may admit up to five per cent of students under Sports/ECA basis’. This is an enabling and not a mandatory clause and, therefore, the option to admit students under these categories rests with the college. Indeed, many colleges including SRCC, St Stephen’s and IP have not admitted students under ECA for several years,” Satya Narain Prakash Punj, Chairman, Governing Body, Hindu College, said in a statement.
Clarifying the college’s reasons to not hold ECA trials, he said, “The governing body has received written complaints about malpractices in such admissions. One such complaint was forwarded to us by the Chancellor of DU, through the Vice-Chancellor, for appropriate action. The governing body did not wish to have aspersions cast on the integrity of the admission process and tarnish the hard-earned reputation of the college. Accordingly, it decided, as a first step, not to make ECA admissions this year.”
The chairman also cited the college’s inability to publish a prospectus, which would have clarified this point, due to the confusion over the four-year undergraduate programme.
“Problems arising out of the FYUP confusion prevented the college from publishing a prospectus, which was to have mentioned this fact. When this was brought to our attention, we put up a public notice on the college notice board and also on the website,” the statement said.
Hindu College had announced that admissions under ECA will not take place this year, two days before trials under ECA category for undergraduate admissions were supposed to be held.
When asked earlier about the reasons behind the decision, the chairman had said, “There are several allegations about corruption in ECA admissions. Also, there are no clear guidelines for ECA admissions from DU, though they assured us that new guidelines will be issued. So we decided earlier that admissions under ECA and Sports categories will not take place in the college, to curb any alleged malpractice.”
For the 16 seats under ECA category, the college had received more than 600 applications.