SC declines SIT probe, says arrests not for dissent
Arrest of five activists
New Delhi, Sep 28: In a 2:1 majority judgement, the Supreme Court on Friday refused to interfere in the arrest of five activists in the Bhima Koregaon case in Maharashtra. It also declined to set up a Special Investigation Team (SIT), allowing Pune police to go ahead with its probe.
The house arrest of the five rights activists -- Sudha Bhardwaj, Varavara Rao, Gautam Navlakha, Vernon Gonsalves and Arun Ferreira -- will continue for four more weeks, said a majority judgement, read out by Justice A.M. Khanwilkar also on behalf of Chief Justice Dipak Misra.
He said that in perusal of documents submitted before the bench it was not a case of arrest merely because of dissent or difference in political views.
In a dissenting judgement, Justice D.Y. Chandrachud said liberty cherished by the Constitution would have no meaning if persecution of the five rights activists were allowed without a proper investigation.
Justice Chandrachud lashed out at the Pune police for going public with evidence and termed it as disconcerting behaviour.
Rejecting the plea seeking the SIT probe into charges that the five have links with banned CPI (Maoist) outfil and were allegedly involved in a conspiracy to kill sovereign leaders, the bench said: "The accused person cannot have a choice in the investigating agency."
However, Justice Khanwilkar said that the accused were at liberty to pursue appropriate legal relief.
As the bench extended its interim order putting them under house arrest, in his dissenting judgment Justice Chandrachud recalled the sequence of events when a senior police officer held a press conference and released letters.
Justice Chandrachud said that the impartiality of the Maharashtra Police was in doubt as it had tried to prejudice public opinion. He questioned "whether the Maharashtra Police can be trusted to carry out impartial investigation".
He ordered a court-monitored SIT probe and said that the technicalities of law cannot be allowed to override the substantive justice.
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Single higher education regulator bill tabled in LS; Oppn flags ‘centralisation,' JPC likely
New Delhi: A bill to set up a 13-member body to regulate institutions of higher education was introduced in the Lok Sabha on Monday.
Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan introduced the Viksit Bharat Shiksha Adhishthan Bill, which seeks to establish an overarching higher education commission along with three councils for regulation, accreditation, and ensuring academic standards for universities and higher education institutions in India.
Meanwhile, the move drew strong opposition, with members warning that it could weaken institutional autonomy and result in excessive centralisation of higher education in India.
The Viksit Bharat Shiksha Adhishthan Bill, 2025, earlier known as the Higher Education Council of India (HECI) Bill, has been introduced in line with the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020.
The proposed legislation seeks to merge three existing regulatory bodies, the University Grants Commission (UGC), the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), and the National Council for Teacher Education (NCTE), into a single unified body called the Viksit Bharat Shiksha Adhishthan.
At present, the UGC regulates non-technical higher education institutions, the AICTE oversees technical education, and the NCTE governs teacher education in India.
Under the proposed framework, the new commission will function through three separate councils responsible for regulation, accreditation, and the maintenance of academic standards across universities and higher education institutions in the country.
According to the Bill, the present challenges faced by higher educational institutions due to the multiplicity of regulators having non-harmonised regulatory approval protocols will be done away with.
The higher education commission, which will be headed by a chairperson appointed by the President of India, will cover all central universities and colleges under it, institutes of national importance functioning under the administrative purview of the Ministry of Education, including IITs, NITs, IISc, IISERs, IIMs, and IIITs.
At present, IITs and IIMs are not regulated by the University Grants Commission (UGC).
Government to refer bill to JPC; Oppn slams it
The government has expressed its willingness to refer it to a joint committee after several members of the Lok Sabha expressed strong opposition to the Bill, stating that they were not given time to study its provisions.
Responding to the opposition, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju said the government intends to refer the Bill to a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) for detailed examination.
Congress Lok Sabha MP Manish Tewari warned that the Bill could result in “excessive centralisation” of higher education. He argued that the proposed law violates the constitutional division of legislative powers between the Union and the states.
According to him, the Bill goes beyond setting academic standards and intrudes into areas such as administration, affiliation, and the establishment and closure of university campuses. These matters, he said, fall under Entry 25 of the Concurrent List and Entry 32 of the State List, which cover the incorporation and regulation of state universities.
Tewari further stated that the Bill suffers from “excessive delegation of legislative power” to the proposed commission. He pointed out that crucial aspects such as accreditation frameworks, degree-granting powers, penalties, institutional autonomy, and even the supersession of institutions are left to be decided through rules, regulations, and executive directions. He argued that this amounts to a violation of established constitutional principles governing delegated legislation.
Under the Bill, the regulatory council will have the power to impose heavy penalties on higher education institutions for violating provisions of the Act or related rules. Penalties range from ₹10 lakh to ₹75 lakh for repeated violations, while establishing an institution without approval from the commission or the state government could attract a fine of up to ₹2 crore.
Concerns were also raised by members from southern states over the Hindi nomenclature of the Bill. N.K. Premachandran, an MP from the Revolutionary Socialist Party representing Kollam in Kerala, said even the name of the Bill was difficult to pronounce.
He pointed out that under Article 348 of the Constitution, the text of any Bill introduced in Parliament must be in English unless Parliament decides otherwise.
DMK MP T.M. Selvaganapathy also criticised the government for naming laws and schemes only in Hindi. He said the Constitution clearly mandates that the nomenclature of a Bill should be in English so that citizens across the country can understand its intent.
Congress MP S. Jothimani from Tamil Nadu’s Karur constituency described the Bill as another attempt to impose Hindi and termed it “an attack on federalism.”
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