AHMEDABAD: The RSS’s student wing, the Akhil Bharatiya Vidhyarthi Parishad (ABVP), has approached the Gujarat high court against the state government’s policy of exempting those private education institutes on which it confers the status of ‘centre of excellence’ from the purview of fee regulation laws.
The high court on Tuesday issued notice to the state government and the advocate general and sought an explanation in this regard by January 11.
By inserting Section 13A in the Gujarat Professional Technical Educational Colleges or Institutions (Regulation of Admission and Fixation of Fees) Act in 2013, and by issuing a notification in March, the government has exempted centres of excellence, which may include private institutes and universities, from this fee regulatory legislation. ABVP termed this “unreasonable, improper, arbitrary, discriminatory and illegal”, and demanded its removal, stating that it is in violation of constitutional provisions, said the petitioner’s advocate, Sudhanshu Jha.
ABVP contended that the government has made the fee regulation law purposeless because it exempts private universities from its purview. It opposed the notification by which the government decided to treat private universities as ‘centres of excellence’. The student union also raised questions about the definition of ‘centre of excellence’.
The petitioner further argued that the University Grants Commission (UGC) has evolved a process of granting assistance, but the Gujarat government instead of assisting or helping such institutions has granted exemption from provisions of the Act formed after the Supreme Court’s verdict. The government’s bid to grant exemption in the name of ‘centre of excellence’ is nothing more than mushrooming of private universities which will become haphazard and uncontrolled and will ultimately contribute adversely to the quality of education.
ABVP also submitted that the amendment in law is discriminatory between institutes as some institutes, which are declared centres of excellence, will be out of the law’s purview while the rest will have to undergo the scrutiny on fee regulation parameters. Moreover, the notification does not provide any rationale for the government for declaring an institute a centre of excellence.