Colleges under Delhi University (DU) have denied admission to a section of students under the category of Other Backward Classes (OBCs) as they failed to produce the OBC certificate for the current year.

The university said such students would have to secure admission on the basis of merit under the general category.

Students and faculty members have criticised the university authorities for their insistence on the production of the certificate and for not allowing admission on the basis of an undertaking from the students that they will produce the document later. The university had mentioned this policy in its admission bulletin in 2021 but colleges had given admission on the basis of the undertaking, said Anand Prakash, a faculty member of Rajdhani College.

“Students get busy preparing for Common University Entrance Test (CUET) and they fail to arrange the certificate for the current year. The colleges always allowed admission on the basis of undertaking submitted in the OBC category. But this year, they are denying admission,” Prakash said.

The university has already conducted the first round of admission for the undergraduate courses. It will start the second round on Friday.

Prakash said thousands of seats in the OBC category will remain vacant because of the rigid norms. Prakash and two other faculty members on Thursday wrote to Hansaraj Ahir, chairman of the National Commission for Backward Classes (NCBC), to draw his attention to the problem.

Ahir then wrote a letter on Thursday evening to DU vice-chancellor Yogesh Singh to extend the deadline for submitting the OBC certificates.

“It has come to my notice that DU has set an extremely short timeframe for OBC students to submit their OBC certificates as part of the admission process for the current academic year and many OBC students are struggling to gather and submit the necessary documents in such a limited period. Please intervene in this matter and ensure that DU extends the deadline for admitting OBC certificates to alleviate the undue stress on students and give them an equal opportunity to secure their place within the university,” Ahir's letter said.

A senior official of the university said that the students were informed about the requirement in February.

“They had four months' time to collect the documents. Many students have religiously collected all the necessary documents. It is not correct to allow admission to students who do not have certificates and keep sincere students waiting,” the official said.

Hansraj Suman, a faculty member of Sri Aurobindo College, said it takes several months for students to obtain the OBC certificates since the authorities examine the income of parents. Only the students belonging to the non-creamy layer of OBCs are entitled to the reservation of 27 per cent.

“The university should have a liberal approach. There has not been any major case of cheating when the students were allowed admission on the basis of the undertaking,” he said.

However, the university official said that there is no such proposal to relax the norms.