As a battery of top lawyers of the country continued their attack on the HRD ministry for cancelling the recognition of 44 deemed universities in the Supreme Court, one of them on Wednesday tried to link the ministry’s decision to an attempt by a “powerful political class” to allow foreign universities to set foot in India.
“A big tussle is going on between UGC and political forces who want foreign universities to come to India. Some political forces want the foreign universities to set foot in India,” senior advocate Rajiv Dhawan said, while assailing the HRD ministry’s decision.
He questioned the legality of the Tandon committee report, on the basis of which the ministry took the decision, saying it virtually had superseded the functioning of the UGC, a statutory body created for managing the affairs of all types of universities.
“It (ministry’s decision) is entirely an act of demolition. The Tandon committee inquiry is only exposing nature not a complete exercise to determine the status of an institution and cannot be, therefore, the basis for overriding the UGC decision,” he argued before a bench of Justices Dalveer Bhandari and Deepak Verma.
Mr Dhawan said the UGC Act passed by Parliament is “wholly exhaustive” and takes care of every aspects of university management.