SC gives NAAC 8 weeks to grade deemed varsities

Jaswinder Singh Baidwan

Akhran da mureed
Staff member
The Supreme Court today set an eight-week deadline for the University Grants Commission’s National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC) for grading the deemed universities (DUs) that had faced de-recognition for poor quality of education.
A Bench comprising Justices Dipak Misra and Prafulla C Pant asked the universities to submit their self-appraisal reports within 10 days to NAAC and clarified that the gradation would be subject to the outcome of the case pending in the SC.
The government pleaded for a three-month time for evolving new guidelines and framing statutory rules for assessing the quality of education being offered by these institutions in the light of their infrastructure, including faculty, and research facilities. The Centre said it was in the process of consulting all the stake holders – All India Council for Technical Education, UGC, NAAC and National Board of Accreditation.
Appearing for some of the DUs, senior advocate Rajeev Dhavan pleaded that the quality assessment should not be done on UGC regulations which had been quashed by two high courts.
The Bench had earlier asked the government to inform these institutions about the deficiencies in their infrastructure and grant them adequate time to remove these so that they could measure up to the benchmark meant for imparting quality education.
The apex court is hearing a PIL filed in 2006 questioning the standard of education being offered by most of the DUs. Subsequently, the Centre sought to derecognise 44 of them on the basis of the Tandon committee report, but these institutions obtained a status quo order, pending disposal of the PIL.
 
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