SC lashes out at UGC over commercialisation of education, restrains deemed varsities from offering distance courses

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Friday hit out at the University Grants Commission (UGC) over commercialisation of education and restrained all deemed universities across the country from continuing any distance learning courses from the 2018-19 without prior approval of the regulatory authorities. 

"Commercialisation of education seriously affects the credibility of standards in education, eroding power and essence of knowledge and seriously affecting excellence and merit," the top court observed.

The UGC has been asked to restrain such institutions from using the word 'University' within one month. "We restrain all deemed-to-be-universities to carry on any courses in distance education mode from the Academic Session 2018-2019 onwards unless and until it is permissible to conduct such courses in distance education mode," a bench of Justice Adarsh Kumar Goel and Justice Uday Umesh Lalit ruled.

The court was hearing a batch of appeals challenging the orders of the High Courts of Orissa and Punjab and Haryana by which the former held the degrees in engineering obtained by serving diploma holders through distance learning mode offered by certain deemed universities to be valid, whereas the latter termed such degrees to be invalid. 

Lashing out at the UGC, the SC said: "The present case further displays lack of effective oversight and regulatory mechanism for the deemed-to-be-universities. The UGC has completely failed to remedy the situation. Serious question has therefore arisen as to the manning of the UGC itself for its effective working," the judgment said.
 
The court directed a CBI inquiry into the conduct of UGC officials who had granted ex-post facto approvals to the four deemed universities against the policy and into the conduct of these institutions which had abused their position to advance their commercial interests.

The apex court directed that degrees of students who have pursued engineering in academic session 2001-05 from four deemed universities -- JRN Rajasthan Vidyapeeth, Institute of Advanced Studies in Education (IASE), Rajasthan, Allahabad Agricultural Institute (AAI) and Vinayaka Mission's Research Foundation, Tamil Nadu, will remain suspended. It set aside the ex-facto approvals granted by the UGC to these four deemed universities, terming them as "incorrect" and "illegal".

The top court directed the AICTE to hold tests for students whose degrees would stand suspended by January 15, 2018. These students will be given more two chances to clear the examination and if they fail to do so, their degrees will stand cancelled.