The Supreme Court docket on Tuesday enquired about distance studying programs provided by state universities past their territorial limits after a petition filed by the College Grants Fee (UGC) objected to the validity of the levels provided to college students who enrolled in such programs after 2015. Supreme Court docket of India. (ANI Photograph)
With the destiny of a number of college students counting on it, the Madras excessive court docket on January 20 had handed an order the place it upheld the UGC round issued in August 2015 that directed Annamalai College in Tamil Nadu and different non-public universities providing distance studying programs to not enroll college students past the territorial limits of the state.
The colleges individually challenged this round within the excessive court docket the place interim orders had been handed now and again, defending the admissions. However within the remaining order of January 20, the HC dominated in favour of the UGC however protected these college students who had already enrolled in distance studying programs underneath interim orders handed now and again.
Solicitor Normal Tushar Mehta, showing for UGC together with advocate Apoorv Kurup, mentioned that after the UGC round has been upheld, the admissions couldn’t be declared legitimate because the interim orders could be topic to the ultimate final result of the petitions filed by particular person universities.
The bench of justices Sanjay Kishan Kaul and Sudhanshu Dhulia agreed to look at the matter and issued notices to Annamalai college, Indira Gandhi Nationwide Open College, the Tamil Nadu authorities and a number of other different non-public universities providing open distance studying throughout the nation.
The court docket, whereas issuing discover, wished to know what programs these college students had enrolled in. Mehta knowledgeable the SC that skilled diploma programs equivalent to engineering can’t be taught by distance studying.
“Having really upheld the powers of the petitioner (UGC) to make laws that prohibit the schools from working open distance studying programmes past the boundaries of their respective state, the excessive court docket couldn’t have validated the levels awarded to the scholars involved on the bottom that the scholars have interim orders of their favour,” the UGC said in its petition.
The HC in its order held, “We hasten so as to add that this shall not have an effect on the scholars who’ve already undergone the programs pursuant to the interim orders of this Court docket…the scholars who’ve been enrolled in programmes underneath the safety of interim orders of this Court docket will stand protected and their levels can be legitimate.”
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The UGC claimed that its 2015 round was based mostly on a judgment of the Supreme Court docket in a 2005 case titled ‘Professor Yashpal vs State of Chhattisgarh’ the place the court docket held that the territorial jurisdiction of state universities is proscribed to their territorial boundaries.
The letter issued by UGC required all state universities to cease all types of off-campus/research centres/affiliated faculties or centres working by franchise past their territorial limits.
The UGC claimed that the HC erred in upholding the enrollments and the levels of scholars who’ve accomplished their course for the reason that universities had wrongfully admitted college students with out being granted recognition for the course provided within the distance studying mode.
