SC issues notice on plea against HC order on UGC's power to regulate distance education programmes

economictimes.indiatimes.com:

Supreme Court on Wednesday sought responses from the Centre and others, including the Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU), on a plea arising out of a Madras High Court judgement that upheld the primacy of the UGC in deciding the regulations for conducting distance education programmes. Though the January 20, 2023 judgement by a division bench of the high court largely favoured the University Grants Commission (UGC), it was aggrieved by a part of the order which said the statutory body's communication of 2012 will not have retrospective effect.

The matter had its roots in an order of the UGC of August 21, 2012 by which it had said the territorial jurisdiction of a university for offering programmes under distance learning will be limited to the state where it exists. Initially, one university filed a writ petition against the UGC order and several others followed suit.

The single bench of the Madras High Court had by its March 12, 2013 order quashed the clause against which the UGC moved a division bench. The division bench noted in its January 20, 2023 judgement that in its August 21, 2012 communication, while recognising the distance education programmes offered by the university, the UGC had imposed a condition to the effect that territorial jurisdiction for offering programmes through distance mode will be as per the decision of the Commission taken in its 40th Distance Education Council (DEC) meeting.

«The said decision was to the effect that the territorial jurisdiction of the State Universities (both government funded and private) will be as per their Acts and Statutes, but not beyond the boundaries of their respective states,» it had noted. «The University Grants Commission's Regulations framed in the