The Hindu : New Delhi News : Stephen’s panel members call for emergency meeting

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Stephen’s panel members call for emergency meeting

Parul Sharma

‘Governing Body bypassed in announcing admission policy’

Bishop Singh had issued a diktat over admission of Christian students
Faculty members feel it will divide and segregate the classrooms

NEW DELHI: Some members of the Governing Body of St. Stephen’s College here have written to the Supreme Council chairman, Bishop Sunil Kumar Singh, expressing concern over the Body being bypassed in announcing the admission policy for the new academic year beginning in July.

Three teacher representatives on the Governing Body on Wednesday wrote to Bishop Sunil Singh urging him to call an “extraordinary” emergency meeting of the Body for obtaining its views and its approval of the policy formulated by him as the chairman.

Bishop Sunil Singh, who is the chairman of the Supreme Council as well as the Governing Body, had recently written to the heads of all the departments at St. Stephen’s College to do the following: a) slash cut-off marks for Christian students to 60 per cent in Honours courses and 55 per cent in Programme courses to fill up the 50 per cent quota for them; b) in case the seats for Christians remained vacant, they would move to the non-Christian SC/ST and physically handicapped category; and c) reduce the weightage for the interview from 15 per cent last year to 10 per cent this year.

There has been opposition in the college to the above mentioned criteria in the admission policy as faculty members feel it will divide and segregate the classrooms.

The letter stated that making and announcing, implementing and monitoring the admission policy fell within the “exclusive domain” of the Governing Body and thus the Supreme Council had no role to play in it.

When contacted, the teacher representatives were not available for comment.

“The role of the Supreme Council is clearly defined and delimited in Clause 5 of the college constitution which bars the Council from involving itself in the administration of the college. In utter disregard of this, the Council has gone ahead and ‘decided’ the admission policy and the same is now being enforced in college,” the letter added.

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