Shweta Bhatt marks seven years of husband’s imprisonment, says rapists, lynchers walk free
New Delhi: On the seventh anniversary of former IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt’s imprisonment, his wife Shweta Bhatt issued a sharp statement condemning what she described as his “wrongful incarceration” for speaking truth to power.
In a post on X, Shweta Bhatt wrote that her husband’s only “crime” was courage, while those accused of heinous offences roam free. “Seven years stolen from a man whose only ‘crime’ was to speak truth to power … seven years in which rapists, murderers, and lynchers walk free, while a man of conscience languishes in jail, his courage the only crime that keeps him there,” she said.
Bhatt, a former IPS officer, has been serving a life sentence in connection with a 1990 custodial death case when he was Additional Superintendent of Police in Jamnagar. He had detained over 130 people during communal riots in Jamjodhpur under TADA, one of whom, Prabhudas Vaishnani, later died after release. Though the CID initially filed an A-summary report, the court rejected it in 1995 and took cognisance of charges.
His legal troubles deepened after he deposed before the Nanavati and Mehta Commissions in 2011 on the 2002 Gujarat riots, alleging the complicity of then Chief Minister Narendra Modi. Following this, his state protection was withdrawn, and subsequent charges were pressed against him.
Despite repeated bail pleas, including a recent appeal before the Supreme Court, Bhatt remains in prison. Shweta Bhatt accused the judiciary of failing its duty, saying it had become “a handmaiden to power” instead of protecting honest voices.
“The regime survives on fear. It thrives on cowardice, greed, and silence. But must we remain silent? Must we allow them to believe that we, the people of India, are cowards, spectators, shadows without voices? The time has come to raise our voice … the time has come to reclaim the nation’s conscience,” she wrote.
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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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