Train Back On Track”: Dalit Student After Top Court Asks IIT To Admit Him

New Delhi: 

Atul Kumar was all smiles as he walked out of the Supreme Court this afternoon. A short while back, a bench led by Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud used its extraordinary powers to ask IIT Dhanbad to admit Atul Kumar to its electrical engineering course.

The 18-year-old Dalit youth from Uttar Pradesh’s Muzaffarnagar cracked the difficult entrance exam to the country’s most coveted engineering course this year. He is from a family below poverty line and his father, a daily-wage labourer, could not arrange the ₹ 17,500 admission fee in time to block the seat.

Atul then ran from pillar to post to save the hard-earned seat. He approached the National Commission for Scheduled Castes, but the panel said it cannot help. Atul also went to the Jharkhand State Legal Services Authority because he had taken the Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) at a centre in Jharkhand. The legal services body suggested he approach the Madras High Court because IIT Madras had conducted JEE this time. The high court then asked him to approach the Supreme Court where he got relief.