HRD Ministry seeks solicitor general opinion on regulating 20 world-class institutes

NEW DELHI: The proposed regulations to set up 20 world-class institutes, caught in a tussle between the Prime Minister’s Office and the human resource development ministry before Smriti Irani’s exit from the ministry, have now landed at the office of the solicitor general of India, sources told ET.

After Prakash Javadekar had taken over as the HRD minister, the ministry referred the draft regulations to the law ministry. The law ministry, in turn, sought the advice of the solicitor general to clearly ascertain the legality of such regulations.

As per a review of the HRD ministry carried out by the PM earlier this year, the regulations were to be readied by August 2016. The HRD ministry has sought clarity from the law ministry whether such regulations can be formulated at all under Section 26 of the UGC Act, 1956.

Tentatively named the UGC (Declaration of Educational Institutions as World Class Institutions) Guidelines, these were to create an “enabling regulatory architecture” to 10 public and 10 private institutions to emerge as world-class teaching and research institutions — a budget announcement made by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley this year.

The regulations aim to create a class of degree-granting ‘worldclass institutes’ as a special category under deemed universities, but governed by a separates set of regulations.

So far, degree-granting powers can only be accorded to an institute through an Act of Parliament or through the deemed to be university route.

In case of the world-class institutes, it is envisaged that a special category for these be created within the deemed-to-be universities segment as going through the motions of a longer legislative route may encounter roadblocks and delays. These proposed regulations, however, ran into trouble with the PMO over greater autonomy and a relaxed regulatory regime.