Under Govt Control

So what is the aim of the CET, as conceived by the UGC?

• To maintain professional standards based on merit and transparency;

• To get rid of the multiplicity of tests that put physical, mental and financial burden on the students;

This provokes some pertinent queries:

• Does the present system lack professional standard, merit and transparency;

• Is multiplicity of tests indeed detrimental;

• Is the UGC, through its present Act, entitled to take over the functioning of the universities;

• Will minority institutions like the Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) be able to retain their distinct character under the proposed system.

While all academic institutions must base their admission tests on uniform standard, merit and transparency, any move to take over their functioning and entrust it to an outside agency would be an ill-conceived plan, beset with serious fallouts. The recent leak of CAT question papers for admission to management institutes bears eloquent testimony to this fact. Further, the uniformity of standards should be introduced during the course, not at the entrance tests which are mostly based on a common curriculum (10+2 level).

Moreover, what if someone misses a single, centralised entrance test due to certain unavoidable circumstances such as illness, law and order situation or a national calamity. He will have to wait another year to take the test. And even in the new plan, an engineering aspirant will have to sit for quite a few tests — JEE for IITs, AIEEE for central universities and SLEEE for each State university.

The most crucial question is whether the UGC is empowered to take over the assigned functions of universities. The UGC Interim Regulation, dated December 17, 2003, provides for ‘‘regulating the maintenance of standards, coordination of work and facilities in universities’’. But this does not suggest, even by the most liberal interpretation, that the UGC can hold CET and direct universities to admit only those students selected through the test. It is worth mentioning that ‘‘university’’, as defined by the Act of UGC in Section 2(f) of the UGC Act, has now been cleverly merged into the definition of ‘‘institution’’. It is well established that anything not contained in the Act cannot be a part of the Regulation. In the present case, this amounts to overriding a Section of an Act of Parliament.

As for the powers of the university, conferred through Act of Incorporation which provides for admission of students to university, one may quote as an example Section 29 (1) (a) of AMU (Amendment) Act, 1981, and equivalent section in other universities’ Acts, which empower the universities to frame their own ordinances pertaining to admission.

The UGC’s dangerous adventure, if unchecked, will reduce the universities to mere vegetative bodies. This hardly augurs well for academic well-being and lofty ideals of higher education — which can be achieved only if universities remain reasonably free and unfettered from stifling bureaucratic restrictions so as to serve as fountainheads of creativity, wisdom and knowledge. Clearly, the proposed CET is a blatant attempt to defile the sanctity and ethos of these temples of higher education and to reduce their status to a mere appendage, subservient to a government body of questionable intent, controlled more by bureaucrats than by academicians.

In almost all their communications pertaining to CET, the UGC and AICTE have quoted two judgements of the Supreme Court, asserting that Regulation 2003 has been framed in accordance with these two orders. However, a close look at the said judgements reveals no such mandatory directives of the apex court in this regard. In fact, the judgement in the TMA Pai Foundation case specifically pertains to ‘‘aided’’ and ‘‘unaided’’ institutions and not to ‘‘universities’’. The court makes a clear-cut observation that universities can also hold their entrance tests (reference to answer 5 (b) of TMA Pai Foundation case).

Similarly, in the second apex court judgement of August 14, 2003, in the case related to the Islamic Academy, the court has stated that it is only concerned with the rights and obligations of the private unaided institutions run by the minorities and non-minorities. Hence, where is the implicit or explicit directive in the two judgements that warrant such a move by the UGC?

So, could there be other surreptitious ‘‘reasons’’ or ‘‘objectives’’ behind the CET proposal? A careful analysis leads to some disturbing conclusions. Interestingly, most of the central universities included in the ambit of the scheme are already a part of either JEE, such as BHU, or SLEEE (State-level test), such as Delhi University, or do not have engineering faculties, such as Visva Bharti, Central University Hyderabad. This leaves AMU, Jamia Millia Islamia and Jamia Hamdard, which appear to be the intended targets of the entire exercise.

The proposed scheme, if implemented, will destroy the special minority character of AMU and will directly impinge upon the provisions of its Special Act provided through parliamentary legislation. The very definition of the university with reference to AMU, as quoted in Section 2 (1) of AMU (Amendment Act) 1981, which is distinctly different from other central universities, is: ‘‘University means the education institution of their choice established by the Muslims of India, which originated as the Muhammadan Anglo-Oriental College, Aligarh and which was subsequently incorporated as the Aligarh Muslim University’’.

This is further strengthened by the fact that while moving AMU (Amendment) Bill, 1981 in Parliament, the Minister of State for Education said: ‘‘Having restored to the university its historical character, we thought it necessary to build into the Act a provision which would empower the university to promote specially the educational and cultural advancements of the Muslims of this country’’. And this provision was indeed incorporated into Section 5 (2) (c) of the AMU (Amendment) Act, 1981, which places this university in the unique position of catering to the educational needs of the Muslims of India.

It is obvious that the implementation of the proposed CET in AMU will negate the very objectives of its existence and would severely undermine its distinctive minority character.

The writers are faculty members of Aligarh Muslim University