44 blacklisted universities get a breather from SC

To the huge relief of nearly two lakh students,the Supreme Court today temporarily restrained the Centre from acting against 44 blacklisted deemed universities by ordering status quo....

To the huge relief of nearly two lakh students,the Supreme Court today temporarily restrained the Centre from acting against 44 blacklisted deemed universities by ordering status quo.

The decision by the division bench of Justices Dalveer Bhandari and A K Patnaik followed a move by the Ministry of Human Resource and Development to derecognise the 44 universities. The court issued notices to all 44,giving them an opportunity to be heard,and sought replies from parent universities to explain how the students,in case derecognition does take place eventually,would be affiliated.

The 44 institutes recommended for derecognition have 1,19,363 students at the undergraduate and postgraduate levels in addition to 2,124 pursuing research in M.Phil and Ph.D programmes. An estimated 74,808 pursue distance education programmes.

The Ministry,represented by Attorney General G E Vahanvati,offered to unconditionally place on record before the court a full report of studies conducted by the Review Committee it is headed by Professor P N Tandon who recommended closure of these universities and the work of the Task Force. The court accepted Vahanvatis submission and directed him to place the report in two weeks.

On January 19, the Ministrys 11-page affidavit described how the Tandon panel had conducted an independent study of the standards and levels of performance of 126 of 130 universities accorded deemed-to-be status by the University Grants Commission.

The affidavit said the institutions had neither on past performance nor on their promise for the future have they attributed to retain their status as deemed to be universities.

The crowded courtroom today saw many leading lawyers appear for some of the institutions whose futures were at stake. Among them was senior advocate Fali S Nariman who questioned how Minister Kapil Sibal could readily accept the recommendations of two non-statutory bodies like the Tandon panel and the Task Force without even a thought for the institutions and the students.

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The Minister should not have done this. He should have first said he proposed to do it. The government should have said they have only tentatively accepted the recommendations. My complaint is against the government alone for accepting the Tandon recommendations, Nariman submitted.

To this,Vahanvati replied that obviously we do not mean that we will go ahead and straight away de-recognise the universities. We propose to do a follow-up in detail. Acceptance of the Task Force report is Step 1. What we will do ahead is Step 2.

Vahanvati repeatedly sought two weeks time to file a detailed action plan for the courts kind consideration on the procedure to follow post de-recognition and the subsequent affiliation of the affected students.

But the court cut in,saying nothing will happen until we hear all of you 44 universities and the final disposal of the matter because we consider this as a matter of vital public interest.

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Students have invested their lives,money and time in these institutions. We want status quo to be maintained by the government. We want an assurance that nothing will happen to them, senior advocate K K Venugopal said in favour of the students.

We were asked to come and make a presentation for 10 minutes. My university got three minutes. How can they close me and other 43 on the basis of a questionnaire, argued senior advocate Rajiv Dhawan who represents one of the blacklisted universities.

This will cause huge havoc. Research contracts are disturbed,students are disturbed,some of us do very serious work. We want to address the issue as to whether the Union of India was right to accept the panel report, Dhawan said.