After Supreme Court order, UGC to have power to close down institutes

KRITIKA SHARMA | Updated: Nov 7, 2017, 08:05 AM IST, DNA


At present, education regulators—UGC and AICTE, can only send notices and cancel affiliation for limited period

After a Supreme Court order recently banned technical education through distance mode and cancelled degrees of hundreds of students who passed out between 2001 and 2005, the central government is now working on the idea of strengthening the powers of its regulators.

Regulators for higher education — University Grants Commission (UGC) and All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) — currently do not have the power to permanently close down an institution that isn't abiding by its norms. They can only send them notices and cancel their affiliation over non-adherence to norms, for a limited period, after which the institute will have to acquire a fresh affiliation.

The Supreme Court had on Friday suspended engineering degrees granted between 2001 and 2005 to all graduates through distance learning by JRN Rajasthan Vidyapeeth, Rajasthan, Institute of Advanced Studies in Education, Rajasthan (IASE), Allahabad Agricultural Institute, Allahabad, and Vinayak Mission Research Foundation (VMRF), Tamil Nadu, for want of adherence to statutory guidelines/policies. With this, the court also ruled that no institution will be allowed to run technical courses through distance mode.

"Our regulators do not have enough power. Had that been the case, a situation like this would not have arised where the court would have to cancel degrees of students. The UGC had sent notices to these institutes, asking them to stop technical education courses through distance mode; but, they did not adhere to the orders and continued offering the courses," said a senior Human Resource Development Ministry official.

"When we talk about a improving our regulatory authorities, we ought to give them more power, including that of deciding on closing down institutions when necessary," the official said.

The Supreme Court judgment had mentioned that the government should form a committee to look into regulatory mechanism in the field of higher education.

"The Union of India may constitute a three-member committee comprising eminent persons who have held high positions in the fields of education, investigation, administration, or law at national level within one month. The committee may examine the issues indicated above and suggest a road map for strengthening and setting up of oversight and regulatory mechanism in the relevant field of higher education and allied issues within six months," the court mentioned in its order.

‘Implement UGC norm in M. Phil. admission’

STAFF REPORTER

MADURAI, NOVEMBER 08, 2017 00:00 IST

UPDATED: NOVEMBER 08, 2017 04:25 IST

HC issues notice to HRD Ministry, Higher Education Dept., UGC

A public interest litigation petition was filed before the Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court on Monday, seeking implementation of 5% relaxation in marks, from 55% to 50% , as per University Grants Commission Regulation, 2016, for differently abled people seeking admission to M. Phil. and Ph. D. programmes.

Relaxation

The petitioner, M .Kamaraj, said as per the University Grants Commission (Minimum Standards and Procedure for Award of M. Phil/ Ph. D Degree) Regulation, 2016, a relaxation of 5% was allowed for differently abled candidates.

The petitioner, who had obtained 53.4% in MA (History), said he had applied for M. Phil. (History) at the Government Arts College, Tiruchi by paying the application fees and appearing for entrance examination.

However, he was denied admission for the year 2016-17 as the prospectus issued by Bharathidasan University for M. Phil. had the minimum eligibility marks as 55%.

An RTI application was filed seeking clarification on the 5% relaxation.

Representation

A representation was also made to the Vice-Chancellor of the university.

The Public Information Officer of the university replied that though there was a 5% relaxation, it could not be implemented for 2016-17 academic programme, the petitioner said.

The petitioner further said many universities in the State and some Central universities had not implemented the relaxation. Even the National Institution for Empowerment of Persons with Multiple Disabilities (NIEPMD), Chennai, was yet to implement the relaxation.

A representation was sent to the Joint Secretary of Social Justice and Empowerment (Department of Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities) and the Director, NIEPMD, for the implementation of the UGC regulation, said Mr. Kamaraj.

The petitioner said he could not apply for 2017-18 programme due to personal reasons.

Hardship

The differently abled candidates were put to much hardship and their right to higher education could not be curtained due to non-implementation of the regulation.

Taking up the petition for hearing, a division bench of Justices M. Venugopal and Abdul Quddhose directed notice to the Principal Secretary, Ministry of HRD; Principal Secretary, Social Justice and Empowerment; Principal Secretary, Department of Higher Education; Secretary, UGC, and Director, NIEPMD.

BU V-C booked under provisions of SC/ST Act

STAFF REPORTER

COIMBATORE, NOVEMBER 08, 2017 00:00 IST

UPDATED: NOVEMBER 08, 2017 03:47 IST

The Vadavalli police here late on Monday registered a case against A. Ganapathy, Vice-chancellor of Bharathiar University, under three provisions of the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Amendment Act, 2015 on a complaint filed by a woman belonging to the Scheduled Castes alleging that she was deliberately denied post-doctoral fellowship.

The complainant N. Srilakshmi Prabha, who had completed PhD from the university in 2011, applied for the post of assistant professor in the Department of Biotechnology in 2016. She alleged that the university did not follow the reservation norms in filling up of vacancies and denied her a job.

Ms. Prabha was later granted a post-doctoral fellowship by the University Grants Commission (UGC) for a tenure of five years in 2017-18.

The UGC had directed the woman to upload her verification proforma through the University Registrar before July 31, 2017. Subsequently, Ms. Prabha submitted the verification proforma to the Registrar through her mentor on June 26.

She alleged that the university, instead of forwarding her proforma to the UGC for verification, sent her a letter asking her to change the institute.

According to her, the University failed to forward her verification proforma to the UGC for a second time when she submitted the documents to the Registrar in September.

The complainant claimed that she lost her post-doctoral fellowship due to intentional wilful refusal by the Vice-Chancellor to forward her papers. She claimed that this was done as she belonged to an oppressed community.

Registering a complaint, the police forwarded the same to Perur DSP A. Velmurugan for investigation.

As per rules any complaint registered under the SC/ST (PoA) Amendment Act has to be investigated by an officer not below the rank of DSP in rural area.

Syndicate ‘backs’ V-C

However, on Tuesday the university’s Public Relations Officer e-mailed the photocopy of a statement to the media, which supposedly contained the signatures of nine members of the university syndicate, in support of the Vice-Chancellor.

The statement, which was on a white paper sans letterheads, said that the complainant N. Srilakshmi Prabha was an unsuccessful candidate for the post of assistant professor in November 2016. A case filed by her before the High Court challenging the rejection of her candidature was dismissed as withdrawn on March 27. Another case filed by her was pending.

With regard to another charge that Srilakshmi Prabha’s husband being removed from the post of driver on consolidated pay, the statement alleged that her husband R. Kanagaraj had turned up for work on many occasions in an inebriated condition and once he chose to enter the chamber of the Vice-Chancellor forcibly and behaved in an “indecent” and “threatening” manner. Some of the syndicate members were witness to the incident. It was a decision of a four-member committee to remove him from service. None of the above decisions were taken by the Vice-Chancellor and rather the decisions were taken only collectively by the committee and the syndicate, the statement added.

Registrar denies discrimination

The University Registrar alleged that her complaint was motivated due to personal reasons.

The University had sought some clarification from the UGC on her post-doctoral fellowship application.

Though her name was not published in the list of candidates short-listed for the fellowship, the University wrote to the UGC seeking clarification if it had approved of her application. It also wanted to know from the UGC if it had approved of the change in mentor.

Varsities must go the extra mile for better global ranking’

STAFF REPORTER

CHENNAI, NOVEMBER 08, 2017 00:00 IST

UPDATED: NOVEMBER 08, 2017 04:37 IST

Guest of honour:Tamil Nadu Governor Banwarilal Purohit arriving for an event in Chennai on Tuesday.K. PichumaniK. Pichumani  

Governor urges Vice Chancellors, registrars to create a road map for improvement

Vice-chancellors and registrars of colleges should revisit the founding vision to take the institutions to greater heights and achieve their objectives, Tamil Nadu Governor Banwarilal Purohit said on Tuesday. Inaugurating the capacity building workshop on institutional ranking for vice-chancellors and registrars of universities in the State held in the city on Tuesday, he said accreditation and rankings ensured quality of education and benchmarked the institutions based on their performance in a competitive set-up. He wanted the universities to put in extra effort to improve their ranking in the world stage by undergoing self evaluation and undertaking audit and gap analysis. Also, the universities should create a road map for improvement.

The Governor said he was happy to note that three Indian institutions were ranked among the top 200 universities with one institution finding a place in the top 100 institutions in the engineering and technology category. However, many parameters of the global rankings did not capture the ground realities prevailing in the country, and particularly, in Tamil Nadu, Mr. Purohit said.

Against this backdrop, the National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) and the National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC), that are part of the international ranking systems, provided a true picture, he added.

Minister for Higher Education K.P. Anbazhagan said providing quality higher education had been the motto of the AIADMK government, and this was evident from the fact that the State was ranked first in the report of the All India Survey of Education 2015-16 in terms of the Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER).

He pointed out that a total of 76 colleges had been opened in the State, with 65 colleges inaugurated during former Chief Minister Jayalalithaa’s tenure, and 11 new colleges under the present Chief Minister, Edappadi K. Palaniswami.

HC says no to filing of I-T returns without Aadhaar

SPECIAL CORRESPONDEHARE ARTICLE

Accepts ASG’s contention that waiver limited to certain transactions

Making a quick course-correction against an order passed by it on October 31 permitting an advocate to file income tax returns without quoting her Aadhaar number, the Madras High Court on Tuesday rejected a similar plea made by another I-T assessee after finding that the Supreme Court had not dispensed with the requirement of Aadhaar for filing of I-T returns.

Justice T.S. Sivagnanam dismissed a writ petition filed by Thiagarajan Kumararaja after concurring with Additional Solicitor- General (ASG) G. Rajagopalan that the apex court had dispensed with Aadhaar number only for transactions such as sale or purchase of immovable property, opening of a demat account and others as listed under Rule 114B of the I-T Rules of 1962.The judge pointed out that Section 139AA (1) of the Income Tax Act of 1961 requires every person who is eligible to obtain Aadhaar number to quote the number in the return of income. A proviso to the Section stated that those who are yet to be allotted Aadhaar number should mention the enrolment ID furnished at the time of submitting the Aadhaar application form.

Similarly, Section 139AA (2) of the Act made it mandatory for every person who had been allotted a Permanent Account Number (PAN) by the I-T department to obtain an Aadhaar number too and intimate it to the authorities concerned. The provision also stated that the PAN would be deemed to be invalid if the income tax assessees fail to provide their Aaadhar number to the I-T officials.

Partial stay

When the validity of Section 139AA was challenged before the Supreme Court in Binoy Viswam’s case, the apex court passed an order on June 9 this year virtually upholding the legal provision. Yet, the matter was referred to a Constitution Bench for testing its validity on the touchstone of Article 21 of the Constitution, including the debate around the right to privacy and human dignity.

In the meantime, the apex court said that a partial stay should be ordered since failure to seed PAN with Aadhaar would lead to serious consequences such as invalidation of PAN. “Those already enrolled under the Aadhaar scheme would comply with the requirement of sub-section (2) of Section 139AA of the Act. Those who still want to enrol are free to do so. However, the PAN cards of those assessees who are not Aadhaar card holders and do not comply with the provision of Section 139AA(2), be not treated as invalid for the time being. It is only to facilitate other transactions which are mentioned in Rule 114B of the Rules,” the SC had observed.

“Therefore, to state that the partial stay granted by the Supreme Court would enure to the benefit of the writ petitioner even for filing income tax returns is a plea which is not sustainable and is liable to be rejected,” Mr. Justice Sivagnanam said.

Mobile numbers will not be disconnected for non-linking with Aadhaar: DoT

Ajith Athrady New Delhi, DH News Service, Nov 8 2017, 0:22 IST

In a virtual volte-face, the government on Tuesday assured that there will be no disconnection of mobile numbers not linked with the Aadhaar number of consumers.

"The Department of Telecom is waiting for the Supreme Court verdict on Aadhaar linking to decide on the action against those who do not want to link their mobile number with Aadhaar," DoT Secretary Aruna Sundararajan told reporters.

At present, there is no plan to disconnect mobile numbers for not linking with the UIDAI number, she said.

"We are also working on alternatives for people who are abroad (to help them link their mobile number with Aadhaar)," she added.

Telecom minister Manoj Sinha said the government's aim is to provide mobile connection and not disconnection. However, we only want to prevent any misuse of the system, he added.

The minister said the DoT is easing the process for mobile subscribers to "re-verify their numbers through Aadhaar without visiting telecom retail outlets".

UIDAI has already said that from December 1, mobile subscribers can re-verify their numbers by using One Time Password (OTP) without visiting mobile retail outlets.

RTI query reveals, Lotus is not India's national flower

Sanjay Pandey, Lucknow, DH News Service, Nov 7 2017, 23:28 IST

The query was submitted by a Lucknow-based RTI activist Aishwarya Parashar.

Contrary to popular perception Lotus is not the national flower of India. In fact, India does not have a national flower.

A response to a query under the Right to Information Act (RTI) by the Botanical Survey of India (BSI) has revealed that Lotus is not the national flower of the country.

The query was submitted by a Lucknow-based RTI activist Aishwarya Parashar.

Aishwarya, in her query to the BSI, which was under the Ministry of Environment and Forests, had sought to know if Lotus had been declared as the national flower of India.

In his response, Tapas Kumar Ghosh, a junior administrative officer and CPIO of the BSI, said that his organisation had not declared any flower as the national flower.

''The BSI has never declared any flower as the national flower of India," Ghosh said in his response.

Aishwarya, a class XI student at a school here, said that the response proved that the information on the Government of India website that Lotus was the national flower was ''incorrect''.

''Since my childhood, I have been told like others that Lotus is our national flower...I preferred the RTI query out of my curiosity to know the truth,'' she told DH.

She said that the government must either officially declare Lotus as the national flower or remove the incorrect information from its website to clear the confusion.

Aishwarya plans to write a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi requesting him to take steps to remove the confusion.