Centre urges Supreme Court to de-recognize 44 deemed varsities

Hitting hard on forty-four ‘doomed’ universities, the Centre has recommended the Supreme Court to de-recognize these erring universities for offering both post-graduate and undergraduate courses, which according to it, are ‘fragmented with concocted nomenclatures’.

Making its stand clear on the issue, the Centre also noted that these errant institutes have been increasing seats ‘disproportionately’ much beyond their actual intake capacity.

While ten of these institutes were given the deemed status prior to 2004, the remaining 34 were declared to be deemed during Mr Arjun Singh’s tenure as Human Resource Development minister.

In an affidavit filed by the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD), the ministry states that neither on the basis of their past performance nor on the basis of the promises that they hold for future could these institutes be allowed to retain their deemed status.

In the list forwarded to the apex court, three are government-sponsored institutes. These include Nava Nalanda Mahavihara in Bihar, Rajiv Gandhi National Institute of Youth Development in Tamil Nadu and the National Museum Institute of the History of Art, Conservation and Museology, New Delhi.

The private institutes featured in the list include the Devraj Urs University in Karnataka, DY Patil University in Maharashtra, the Manav Rachna Institute in Faridabad and the Savita Institute and the Vinayaka Mission in Tamil Nadu.

However, the Centre has suggested that the listed institutes be allowed to retain their earlier status as affiliated colleges of their original universities since other stringent legal actions in this regard would jeopardise the future of the nearly two lakh students who have been already enrolled in these universities.

The affidavit adds that out of the one hundred and thirty institutions that were deemed to be universities, only thirty eight justified the continuation of their deemed status.

Another forty-four institutions that were found to be deficient in certain aspects of functioning, have been allowed three years of time for improvement.

The expert review committee came down severely on the present university system and its contribution to ‘emerging areas of knowledge’.  The committee was of the opinion that, with the notable exception of some publicly funded institutions, most of the universities did not provide any space for quality research.

Earlier, the disgraceful instances of irregularities that were reported to have occurred in some of the deemed universities had made the MHRD give strict instructions to the University Grants Commission to analyse the functioning of all the deemed universities.

In a parallel move, the ministry also appointed a review committee which consisted of Prof. PN Tandon, Prof. Goverdhan Mehta, Prof. Mrinal Miri and Prof. Anandakrishnan. This committee was assigned with the task of examining whether the deemed universities should be allowed to retain their deemed status or not.

Following the guidelines put forward by the committee, a task force was formed in November to frame an action plan to safeguard the interests of those hapless students who have already been enrolled in those deemed universities, whose status might be revoked.

The MHRD is fixing regulations both for the present deemed universities and also for those in line for the status.
 
LIST OF THE DE-RECOGNIZED UNIVERSITIES HERE