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Notice to AICTE, Medical Council

Legal Correspondent

Confer status only on quality institutions: petition in apex court

Notice already issued to Centre and UGC Statutory authorities not consulted

New Delhi: A Bench of the Supreme Court has issued notice to the All-India Council for Technical Education, the Medical Council of India and the Dental Council of India on a public interest petition seeking a direction to lay down new guidelines for declaring an institution deemed university.

The court already issued notice to the Centre and the University Grants Commission.

In his petition, advocate Vipalav Sharma submitted that notice be issued also to the AICTE, the MCI and the DCI as they were the regulatory bodies for technical, medical and dental education. Justices S.B. Sinha and Markandey Katju were on the Bench. In a fresh impleadment application, the petitioner said technical, medical and dental colleges were included in the list of deemed universities without clearance from the three statutory authorities, which had to advise the UGC on conferment of the status.

It is a trend

Now the status was being sought by all sorts of institutions having no infrastructure and adequately qualified staff. The trend of establishing deemed universities had gained ground and new developments in education were being exploited commercially and all safeguards including approvals by the State governments, the AICTE, the MCI and the DCI bypassed, the petitioner said.

Now there were about 100 deemed universities. Earlier the status was granted to a few specific institutions for certain faculties, which proved their academic excellence. But in the last few years a number of professional colleges had obtained the deemed university status and were misusing it.

Besides seeking proper guidelines, he wanted a direction issued to immediately publish in newspapers the names of unauthorised centres run by deemed universities so that students would not fall prey.

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