Arun Jaitley criticises JDS, Congress for organising protest against IT searches
New Delhi: Finance Minister Arun Jaitley Saturday criticised JDS and Congress leaders for organising a protest outside the Income Tax Office at Bengaluru for conducting searches on PWD contractors and engineers.
Stating that the disproportionality of the reaction of the Congress and the JDS raises a needle of suspicion, Jaitley said
"If no politician has been searched, no minister has been searched, then why the protest?"
"The Bengaluru case is a text book method of the UPA on 2 fronts: use government money, round trip it through contractors and beneficiaries to enrich themselves and then lip sympathy for federalism destroying it whenever the opportunity arises. This is a very transparent self goal," Jaitley said in his blog titled 'The UPA makes corruption a cause'.
Led by Karnataka Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy, the Congress-JDS ruling combine organised a protest in front of the Income Tax department at Bengaluru on Thursday against a statewide crackdown on his partymen and others.
Jaitley said that it was unprecedented that the chief minister of a state joined the street protest against income tax searches with a political motivation.
"The disproportionality of the reaction of the Congress and the JDS raises a needle of suspicion. Was the minister's nephew a PWD contractor to whom largesses have been given a case of nepotism? The CM and the ministers who joined the protest need to answer these questions," Jaitley said.
Even as the JDS and Congress leaders in the state alleged that ministers had been searched, the best evidence they could provide for was that the nephew' of a minister was searched, Jaitley said, adding that even the tax authorities have issued a statement saying that no MP, MLA or minister was searched.
Questioning whether states' attitude is a threat to federalism, Jaitley said federalism is not merely the rights of the states. Indian federalism entails India as a union of states .
"The rights of the union are equally important. Security of India, sovereignty, dealing with terrorism, managing the borders, custom check points, income tax enforcement are all amongst the several constitutional powers of the union.
"If the states stand in way of any of them it is guilty of breaching federal norms. Can a state barge its police into the customs area and direct the customs as to what is to be done? This would be a threat to federalism," he said.
Jaitley said many states have stopped giving police security to income tax authorities when they conduct their operations.
"Alternatively, when state police is asked for, the information is leaked out to the political government and it reaches the targets of the operations. Tax authorities increasingly have to rely on central forces. In the Kashmir valley recently, searches were conducted under the governor's rule after 17 years. These taxes are meant for the welfare of the poor in India," he added.
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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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