HC dismisses JNU students' plea on UGC guidelines

The Delhi high court has thrown out a plea by some JNU students challenging admission policy for MPhil and PhD courses under the UGC’s guidelines issued last year.

The Delhi high court on Thursday dismissed as infructuous the plea by some students challenging JNU admission policy for MPhil and PhD courses. The court said the University Grants Commission (UGC) guidelines for MPhil and PhD courses are binding on all varsities

Administrative office of the Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi. (HT Photo)

The July 5, 2016 notification had said that a professor, at any given point of time, cannot guide more than three MPhil and eight PhD scholars.

JNU students had contended the notification would result in “excess seat cuts” leading to no admission in the MPhil, PhD programmes at several centres of the varsity. They were on a sit in protest at the administrative block, which they have named as ‘Freedom Square’.

The petitioners who had moved the high court, had agreed to take an undertaking that they are not challenging the UGC notification and restricting their case to “procedural lapses” on JNU’s part in adopting the notification.

The JNU’s counsel had told the court the UGC regulations were “binding on the university”. It said the university will neither receive grant nor could award degrees if it stopped following the UGC’s regulation.

The counsel further said 43 central universities were already following the UGC’s notification.

The students’ counsel had contended that the university did not include the students’ representative in the meetings held to discuss the implementation of the notification. The students’ petition had claims that the notification “threatens to put their future in jeopardy” as they would not be able to find a supervisor.

The students had sought that the issue of adoption of the notification be sent back to the academic council of the varsity for urgent reconsideration.