New Delhi: Even as the Supreme Court issued notice to the University Grants Commission (UGC) on a petition challenging the norms for conferment of deemed university status, the UGC, at its meeting held here last week, is understood to have recommended to the Union Government the granting of the deemed university status on 10 institutions.

According to highly placed sources, the bulk of these institutions are in Tamil Nadu and the decision was reported to have been taken without the proper recommendation of the All-India Council for Technical Education.

The AICTE Act clearly states that the Council "may advice the Commission for declaring any institution imparting technical education as deemed university." Also, in a recent notification of the Ministry of Human Resource Development dated April 5, the power of AICTE has been recognised as the notification states that "the UGC, while making its recommendation to the Central Government, for the grant of deemed to be university status to any institution, may seek the advice of the AICTE or other relevant statutory authorities, as the case may be (e.g. the AICTE for technical education and management education, the Medical Council of India for medical education, the Dental Council of India for dental education, etc.)."

But, it appears that none of the institutions has been recommended by AICTE for conferment of deemed university nor has the UGC sought any advice from AICTE before recommending these new institutions for conferment of deemed university status. As on date there are about 100 deemed universities. Such a status used to be granted to specific institutions for certain faculties, which proved their academic excellence. But in the last few years a number of professional colleges have obtained deemed university status.

Direction sought

The petition before the Supreme Court alleged that the UGC and the Centre were conferring the deemed university status arbitrarily. Besides seeking proper guidelines, it wanted a direction to immediately publish in newspapers the names of unauthorised centres run by deemed universities so that the student community does not fall a prey to these institutions. The Madras High Court is also hearing a batch of petitions on this issue. The decision to grant deemed university status to 10 new institutions comes while these petitions are still pending in courts.

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