Center to derecognize 44 deemed universities in India
20 Jan 2010
The Centre on January 19 2010 told the Indian Supreme Court that it has decided to withdraw the "deemed" status to 44 universities in the country alleging these were being run as family fiefdoms rather than on academic considerations.
The Centre told the Supreme Court that it has decided to withdraw the "deemed" status to 44 universities in the country. However, to avoid jeopardizing the future of nearly two lakhs students enrolled in these universities spread over 13 states, they would be allowed to revert back as affiliated colleges of their original universities, the Centre said in an affidavit.
The affidavit filed by the HRD Ministry said the government has accepted the recommendations made in this regard by the high-powered P N Tandon committee and the Special Task Force set up to suggest measures to tackle the problem. "The Review Committee came across several aberrations in the functioning of some of the institutions deemed to be universities. It found undesirable management architecture where families rather than professional academics controlled the functioning of institutions," the affidavit said.
The high-powered committee and the task force had arrived at the findings after evaluating the functioning of 126 deemed universities in the countries. While 44 of them were found unfit to retain the deemed status, 44 others have been given directions to fill up the lacuna in their respective functioning to enable them retain the status. In the case of 38 others, the committee found them to be up to the mark.
According to the Centre, the task force has recommended that the 44 deemed universities which are to be de-recognized "should revert status quo ante as an affiliated college of the state university of jurisdiction so that students would be able to complete their ongoing courses and obtain degree from the affiliating university. The decision applies to all such proposed de-recognized deemed varsities including medical and dental, the government said. A bench of Justices Dalveer Bhandari and A K Patnaik adjourned the hearing on the matter for a week to enable the petitioner Viplav Sharma to file his response. In an intereim order India's Supreme Court on the 25th Jan has retrained the central government to take action till March so as to protect the interest of the students.
Following are the universities which are to be stripped of their deemed status after the matter has been settled in the Supreme Court in March : Christ College, Bangalore; Vignan's Foundation for Science, Technology and Research, Guntur; Andhra Pradesh; Lingaya's University, Faridabad; St.Peter's Institute of Higher Education and Research,Chennai; Noorul Islam Centre for Higher Education, Kanyakumar; Jaypee Institute of Information Technology, Noida. Sohobhit Institute of Engineering and Technology, Meerut; Sumandeep Vidyapeet, Vadodara, Gujarat; Sri Devraj Urs Academy of Higher Education and Reserch, Kolar, Karnataka; Yenepoya University, Mangalore; BLDE University, Bijapur, Karnataka; Krishna Institute of Medical Sciences, Satara, Maharashtra; D Y Patil Medical College, Kolhapur, Maharashtra, Meenakshi Academy of Higher Education and Research, Chennai.