New Delhi, Sep 30 :The Delhi High Court has denied admission to a Meerut girl in a varsity in the capital on the ground that her study centre for the B. Ed course for teachers' training was not here.

The court, in a ruling this week, agreed with the Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University's decision to deny admission to Nisha Shokeen, who pleaded that she had been denied admission in the M. Ed course as her study centre for B. Ed was in Meerut.

Nisha contended that since she had cleared the entrance exam and secured first rank in the OBC (other backward classes) category and 35th in the general category, the university's grounds of denying her admission was against the rules.

However, the university contended that under admission guidelines, it was clearly stated that the sanctioned intake of students from Delhi was 85 percent and 15 percent for those who passed the qualifying examination from outside the capital.

Nisha stated that she should have been considered as a Delhi candidate and not from outside because she had done her B. Ed. from the Delhi-based open university IGNOU. She said her study centre was in the Delhi Region II under which Meerut falls.

After hearing both the parties, Justice Anil Kumar said, "This is not disputed that petitioner (Nisha) was enrolled with the Indira Gandhi National Open University for her course of B. Ed.

"The open university has study centres throughout the country and the petitioner was enrolled in a study centre which was at Meerut."

But while dismissing Nisha's plea, the court said: "The fact that the study centre/institution of the petitioner at Meerut was under Regional Centre II which is located in Delhi
(Region) does not make the study centre in Delhi. The study centre in the system of open learning is equivalent to a school or institution where the candidates attend classes under the contact programme."

"Since the study centre - which is equivalent to an institution of the petitioner for the course of B. Ed - was at Meerut, the petitioner cannot be considered as a candidate of the Delhi Region and the petitioner could be considered only as a candidate outside the Delhi Region," the court said.(IANS)