CUTTACK: The controversy over the amendment of the Odisha Universities Act, 1989 has taken a new turn with the University Grants Commission (UGC) taking a stand against it in the Orissa high court.
When the Orissa Universities (Amendment) Act, 2020 was brought in almost seven months ago, the BJD government had claimed that the aim was to bring the universities in the state under the purview of a single Act. The move had sparked a controversy with opposition from different quarters, especially educationists and the political parties, demanding withdrawal of the amendment.
The dispute had reached the high court with a retired professor of Jawaharlal Nehru University, Ajit Kumar Mohanty, and a professor of Utkal University, Kunja Bihari Panda, along with others, filing two separate PILs seeking the HC’s intervention.
The row hinged on the allegation that the amendment stripped away the autonomy of higher educational institutions by bureaucratising critical aspects of the functioning of the universities and crippling their autonomy and exercising the state government’s complete dominance.
Responding to notices, the UGC submitted its stand and its regulations when the matter was taken up for hearing on June 17.
In the affidavit, UGC’s education officer Dr Supriya Dahiya said the Orissa Universities (Amendment) Act, 2020 was in conflict with the UGC regulation, 2018 issued under the University Grants Commission Act, 1956.
The UGC regulation and its amendment, issued by the UGC from time to time, are framed after detailed deliberations by the expert committee and are mandatory in nature and cannot be overlooked at any stage and all the universities/ institutions/ colleges have been advised to strictly comply with it. But it seems that in this case, the Odisha University (Amendment) Act, 2020 has not been enacted in strict compliance with the UGC guidelines, Dahiya said in the affidavit.
With the state government requesting for an opportunity to respond to UGC’s affidavit by way of an affidavit, the two-judge bench of Chief Justice S Muralidhar and Justice Savitri Ratho directed it to file it positively by the next date (July 14).
The UGC affidavit also said the amendment in the procedure for the selection of the vice-chancellor of universities and constitution of selection committees and guidelines on selection procedure are not in conformity with the UGC regulation-2018. The state legislature could not have passed a parallel enactment making the encroachment with regard to the composition of the selection committee patent and obvious.
The affidavit indicated the extent to which the state legislation was in conflict with the central legislation .
