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Latest News |
| 30th
January 2010 / Times of India / Pune Edition |
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Deemed universities: SC issues notice to Centre
New Delhi: The imbroglio over deemed universities appears to be spinning into a larger litigation in the Supreme Court.
After agreeing to scrutinise the HRD ministry panel’s hard-hitting recommendation to strip 44 deemed universities of the status, the apex court on Friday entertained a PIL seeking to strip the University Grants Commission (UGC) of the power to confer such status on colleges. Generally reluctant to entertain PILs, the Bench comprising Chief Justice K G Balakrishnan and Justices V S Sirpurkar and Deepak Verma took no time in issuing notices to the HRD ministry and UGC on a public interest litigation challenging the constitutional validity of Section 3 of the UGC Act.
The PIL by Patna-based Jitendra Narain Singh through counsel Amit Anand Tiwari said the UGC had been misusing the powers under Section 3 of the Act to mindlessly confer deemed university status on undeserving educational institutions. The petitioner said: “Section 3 confers wide, uncanalised, unguides and absolute power on the executive to recognise an institution as ‘deemed university’ and such action has resulted in commercialisation of the system of granting degrees.”
Singh said conferment of deemed university status on undeserving institutions allowed them to exploit innocent children and their parents who spend a fortune without knowing the standard of education imparted by these deemed universities.
Referring to an earlier decision of the court cancelling establishment of a large number of universities in Chhattisgarh through an executive decision, the petitioner said that SC had categorically held in Prof Yashpal’s case that establishment of universities was a legislative act. The grant of deemed university status for considerations other than standard of education has defeated the statements of objects and reasons of enactment of the UGC Act, which was to prevent mushrooming of institutions having the power to confer degrees.
Two types of reservation policy for world class varsities
New Delhi: In its revised concept note on the setting up of 14 Innovation Universities, the HRD ministry has proposed two types of reservation policy for these institutions, some of which will be directly funded by the government, while a few will be in the PPP mode. Within PPP, it has been proposed that world class universities from abroad might also be invited to set up similar institutes here. The government will be a partner in the establishment and research programme, while the cost of teaching will be funded by the promoter university. The Innovation Universities fullyfunded by the government will follow the existing reservation policy in admission for SCs/STs/OBCs. The Central Educational Institutions (Reservation in Admission) Act, 2006, will be applicable in their case.
However, in case of Innovation Universities in PPP mode, the HRD note says affirmative action cannot be wished away. Therefore, it has been suggested to weigh the test scores with a measure for the socio-economic background of the candidates. The weight will take into account factors such as educational qualification of parents, their income and the nature of school (rural-urban) from where the student passed. Universities will have the freedom to evolve the methodology of finalising the weight, which will replace the concept of reservation.
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