New Delhi: The Union Ministry of Human Resource Development has disapproved of the manner in which the University Grants Commission recommended conferment of deemed university status on 10 institutions this April and June.

In a missive, the Ministry sought clarifications on the UGC proposals.

According to highly placed sources in the government, the letter was intended to ascertain whether the applicant-institutions satisfied all requirements and whether any of the Ministry's guidelines was given the go-by.

The Supreme Court already issued notice to the Centre and other affiliating bodies, on a public interest petition asking them to explain the procedure for conferment of the deemed university status. The Centre is yet to file its response.

Assurance to court

The sources said the Centre assured the Madras High Court in April that it would ensure that the institutions seeking the status fulfilled all requirements and there was no dilution of standards. Accordingly, it issued a notification on April 5 asking the UGC to seek the advice of the All-India Council for Technical Education, the Medical Council of India or other relevant statutory authorities while making its recommendations to the Centre for grant of the status.

"It appears that in the case of these 10 institutions the UGC has not sought the recommendations from the statutory authorities concerned though Section 10 (t) of the AICTE Act empowers the AICTE to advise the UGC on declaring any institution imparting technical education a deemed university," the sources said.

It was pointed out that many institutions obtained the status for an arts and science college and then started professional programmes claiming that these were within the ambit of the college unit. This was intended to circumvent the requirement of AICTE recommendation for conferment of the deemed university status on technical institutions.

Normally, according to the AICTE's guidelines, a technical institution has to complete 15 years of existence and five years of running a postgraduate programme.

However, exceptions are given under the de novo category provided the institutions maintain a corpus of Rs.25 crore and are sponsored by an industry of repute. Many institutions attempt to circumvent this requirement and approach the UGC directly for conferment of the deemed university status, taking advantage of the Supreme Court judgment in the Tiruchi Bharathidasan University case.

In that case, the court held that no prior AICTE approval was necessary for a university to start an engineering course.

In the Centre's perception, many arts and science colleges, on becoming deemed universities, were starting engineering programmes without the AICTE approval.

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