SC verdict on Babri no setback, say Muslim petitioners
New Delhi, Sep 27: The Supreme Court ruling that rejected a plea for referring the Babri Masjid-Ram Janmabhoomi dispute to a larger Constitution Bench is not a setback, a number of Muslim petitioners asserted on Thursday.
By a majority 2-1 judgement, the Supreme Court rejected a plea for referring the case to a larger Constitution Bench and referred the case to a three-judge bench to be set up that will begin hearing from October 29.
Advocate Zafaryab Jilani, the convenor of the Babri Masjid Action Committee, said the verdict was no setback.
"It is not at all a setback. It just means that the trial will start now. The court has clarified that the observations made by a Supreme Court bench in the Ismail Farooqi case of 1994 were made in a particular context and not related to this case. I think that serves the purpose," Jilani told the media.
All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB) member Maulana Khalid Rashid Firangimahali echoed him.
"The positive aspect of today's decision is that the court has made it very clear that Ismail Farooqi case will have no impact on the Ayodhya case. As far as the masjid and namaz and the religious aspects are concerned, it is an established fact that mosques are built to offer namaz and they are an integral part of our religion," he told the media.
"Our main contention is that the whole land belongs to the Sunni Waqf Board and whatever the Allahabad High Court said, legally I think it cannot be said that you can divide the land between the three parties when you have not decided as to whom does it belong. So our main contention is that the whole land should be given to the Sunni Waqf Board," he added.
BJP Rajya Sabha member Subramanian Swamy said the Modi government should acquire the land and hand it over to the representative bodies of the Hindus.
"There is no need to talk about whose property is this, whether Ram Janmabhoomi nyas or others. What we have to understand is if the Hindus have a fundamental right to pray at the spot where the faith tells them that Lord Rama was born," Swamy told CNN-News18.
"The government has s right to acquire properties including mosques. I would urge the Modi government to immediately acquire the entire land and hand it over to some representatives of the Hindua which include the various Akahras and the Vishwa Hindu Parishad," he added.
Senior advocate Shakeel Ahmed Syed, representing Sunni Waqf Board, talks to the media outside the Supreme Court, in New Delhi on Sept 27, 2018. The Supreme Court on Thursday rejected a plea for referring the Ramjanambhoomi-Babri Masjid dispute to a larger Constitutional Bench and decided that a newly set up three-judge bench will hear the case from October 29.
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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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