Govt plans ordinance to undo SC ruling on AICTE powers

The government will bring an ordinance to make it mandatory for private colleges in the country to seek the approval of the All India Council for Technical Education for running postgraduate MBA and MCA courses. Nagendar Sharma reports.

The government will bring an ordinance to make it mandatory for private colleges in the country to seek the approval of the All India Council for Technical Education for running postgraduate Master of Business Administration (MBA) and Master of Computer Application (MCA) courses.

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The ordinance will reverse the April 26 judgment of the Supreme Court, which had stripped the AICTE of powers to approve the MBA and MCA courses in private colleges, HT has learnt.

The Supreme Court, in its judgment had stated that the role of AICTE was advisory and “it had no business to lay down standards for the MBA and MCA courses, since Parliament had already enacted the University Grants Commission Act for the purpose.”

The top court verdict judgment was a huge blow to the AICTE which had made it mandatory for 3,858 management institutes (with 3.7 lakh seats) and 1,937 MCA colleges (with 1.9 lakh seats) across the country to seek its approval for the courses.

However, the ordinance prepared by the human resources development ministry and scrutinised by the law ministry, likely to be placed before the cabinet soon, seeks to undo the top court verdict.

The ministry has also sought to clearly define the terms autonomous college and technical institution in the AICTE Act to remove any doubts about these expressions to avoid any complications in the functioning of universities.

“The Supreme Court has observed that universities, its colleges, constituent institutions and units are exempted from seeking AICTE approval…..It is now proposed that an autonomous college has to be declared by the university and so will be the technical institutions,” the ministry stated.