“Vague, capable of misuse”: Indian SC stays new UGC caste equity regulations
New Delhi: Terming as “vague and capable of misuse”, the Indian Supreme Court put in abeyance the University Grants Commission (Promotion of Equity in Higher Education Institutions) Regulations, 2026, that triggered widespread protests on educational campuses across the country.
According to Kashmir Media Service, a Bench of Chief Justice of India Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi said, “If we don’t intervene, it will lead to dangerous impacts…. It will divide society and will have grave impacts.”
The Bench issued notices to the New Delhi and the UGC on petitions challenging the UGC’s controversial regulation, which restricted caste-based discrimination grievance mechanisms to SC, ST and OBC categories. The top court posted the matter for further hearing on March 19. Solicitor General Tushar Mehta accepted the notice on behalf of the Centre.
Exercising its plenary powers under Article 142 of the Constitution, the Bench, however, revived the UGC’s 2012 regulations on the issues to ensure that the victims of caste discrimination were not left without any remedy.
The court strongly disapproved of the idea of having separate hostels for SC and ST students. “For God’s sake, don’t do that,” CJI Kant said.
The Bench clubbed three petitions filed by Vineet Jindal, Rahul Dewan and others with an earlier petition pending in the top court. “Since issues raised in 2019 plea shall also have bearing while examining constitutionality… let these petitions be tagged with the same,” it said.
The Bench proposed to set up a committee of experts to examine the issues involved. “Prima facie, we say that the language of the regulation is vague and experts need to look into the language to be modulated so that it is not exploited,” it said.
The Bench sought to know why “caste-based discrimination” has been separately defined when the definition of “discrimination” already took care of all forms of discriminatory treatment. It also wondered why ragging has been left out of the new UGC regulations.
The court order came after advocate Vishnu Shankar Jain pointed out on behalf of the petitioners that the new UGC regulations treated general category students as criminals and that such regulations would vitiate the environment on college campuses.
