Varsities facing de-recognition get a reprieve

Varsities facing de-recognition get a reprieve


New Delhi: The Supreme Court (SC) has allowed the 44 deemed universities whose recognition is at stake to accept fresh students, despite strong objections from the human resource development (HRD) ministry.
The apex court dismissed on Thursday a plea by the HRD ministry that the universities, indicted by the Tandon Committee last year, be restrained from admitting new students.
A bench of justices Dalveer Bhandari and Gyan Sudha Mishra pointed out that the very basis of the Tandon panel had been questioned, thus it wouldn’t be appropriate to pass any prohibition order against the universities, which the Centre sought to de-recognise.
The court will hear the matter on August 3. It asked the parties concerned to fileaffidavits and responses by then.
SC also rejected solicitor general Gopal Subramanium’s argument that at least a condition be imposed on the disputed universities that they would abide by the court’s judgment and fresh admissions would be subject to that decision.
The apex court had on April 13 decided to examine the core issue of whether the government had the power to drop the “deemed” status of the 44 universities.
Union HRD minister Kapil Sibal had in October last year issued notices to the universities after a review committee headed by professor PN Tondon recommended dropping of their “deemed” status on the ground that they had failed to meet the standard required for sustaining the status.
The panel said the universities were being run as family fiefdoms, rather than as institutions of academic excellence, which they claimed to be.
Sibal had also announced formulating a national commission for higher education and research bill to scrap the concept of deemed universities.
There was a hue and cry as the future of about 1.5 lakh students had been put at stake.
The task force then recommended that the failed institutions, which were earlier colleges or state affiliated universities, should be reverted to their original positions and all the students enrolled there must be allowed to complete their studies there.

Source Link: http://www.dnaindia.com/academy/report_varsities-facing-de-recognition-get-a-reprieve_1380050