AICTE Has No Role to Take Action against Deemed Universities: Madras HC
- Madras HC ordered interim stay on AICTE's notification, which sought deemed-to-be universities submit applications as new institutes for approval.
- AICTE has no role to urge the institute seek approval as a new institute, argued by petitioners.
The High Court of Madras has directed the AICTE (All India Council for Technical Education) not to take action against specific deemed universities across Tamil Nadu, that did not respond for approval of new courses for the upcoming academic session. Some popular deemed to be universities in Tamil Nadu such as Vellore Institute of Technology and Veltech Deemed University filed petitions against AICTE’s policy towards deemed universities.
The petitioners claimed that the public notice issued by AICTE last year was not applicable to deemed universities. According to rules, deemed institutes are governed by the UGC (University Grants Commission) and AICTE has no authority directing them to seek approval as new institutes.
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In the notice issued by AICTE, the council has invited the applications for approval from all proposed and existing technical institutions for conducting technical courses or programmes (including management courses) for the academic year 2018-19. AICTE prescribed January 31, 2018, as the deadline for submitting the applications.
As per the guidelines prescribed by AICTE, deemed institutes seeking approval from AICTE for the first time should submit applications as a new institute. On November 3, 2017, Supreme Court of India agreed with the guidelines of AICTE.
The counsel representing deemed institutes argued in Madras HC that the order of apex court is applicable only to institutions offering technical degree courses in Open and Distance Learning (ODL) mode.
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Veltech Deemed University further submitted to the court it is functioning under the guidelines of UGC. Therefore, AICTE has no role to urge the institute seek approval as a new institute.