The Centre Must Fix UGC Equity Rules, Not Bury Them
Editor-in-Chief of indiacommentary.com. Current Affairs analyst and political commentator. Author of Cyber Scams in India, Digital Arrest, The Money Trap and The Human Hack
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By Sunil Garodia
First publised on 2026-11-12 13:31:57
About the Author
Editor-in-Chief of indiacommentary.com. Current Affairs analyst and political commentator. Author of Cyber Scams in India, Digital Arrest, The Money Trap and The Human Hack
View all posts by this Author
Nine months after the Supreme Court froze the 2026 regulations, the Solicitor General says the government is "contemplating" a committee. Contemplation is not a remedy for students who need a working complaint system today.
The Centre's position in the Supreme Court on November 5 amounts to a promise to think. Solicitor General Tushar Mehta told a bench led by Chief Justice Surya Kant that the government is contemplating a committee to re-examine the University Grants Commission's 2026 equity regulations. Its composition and mandate are not known. No timeline has been reported. The Court adjourned the matter for four weeks.
This is the same Centre that told the Court on August 20 that the regulations were under reconsideration. Eleven weeks later, reconsideration has become contemplation. The regulations were notified on January 13 and stayed by the Court on January 29. The Court called them prima facie vague and capable of misuse, and it suggested that a committee of eminent jurists revisit them. More than nine months on, the executive has not constituted one.
What the stay left behind
A stay does not create a vacuum. The Court directed that the 2012 regulations continue to operate. Those rules were largely advisory in nature, and they carry none of the fixed timelines of the 2026 text. Under Regulation 8 of the 2026 regulations, an Equity Committee had to meet within 24 hours of a complaint and report within 15 working days. The institution then had seven working days to act. A student who complains of caste bias today does not have the benefit of those timelines.
The numbers explain why the timelines mattered. Complaints of caste discrimination reported to the UGC rose from 173 in 2019-20 to 378 in 2023-24, according to data placed before Parliament. The five-year total was 1,160. The Education Ministry also told Parliament in December 2021 that 122 students in centrally funded institutions died by suicide between 2014 and 2021. Of these, 68 belonged to the Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Other Backward Classes. The same record shows that 87 of 108 central institutions had SC/ST cells. Mechanisms existed on paper. The harm continued.
These figures do not prove causation in any single case. They do show that the problem is large, measured and rising. The regulations also did not arrive from nowhere. The matter arose in Abeda Salim Tadvi v. Union of India, the litigation brought by the mothers of Rohith Vemula and Payal Tadvi. The Court has not been asked to defend a theory. It has been asked to respond to deaths.
The flaws are real, and they are curable
The Court's reservations deserve a direct answer. Regulation 3(1)(c) defines caste-based discrimination as discrimination on the basis of caste or tribe against members of the SC, ST and OBC. Regulation 3(1)(e) defines discrimination more broadly, to cover unfair treatment of any stakeholder on grounds including caste. The bench asked why both clauses were needed. That question sits at the centre of the case.
The Constitution supplies the answer. Article 15(1) bars discrimination on grounds including caste against any citizen. Article 15(4) permits special provision for the socially and educationally backward classes and for the SC and ST. A regulation can honour both. It can protect every student from caste bias through 3(1)(e) and keep the targeted machinery for historically excluded groups. The text should say so in plain words, not leave it to inference.
The second flaw is the missing safeguard against false complaints. The 2025 draft carried a provision for disciplinary action against false or malicious complaints. The final regulations dropped it. That omission handed the petitioners their strongest argument. A penalty for a knowingly false complaint does not weaken victims. It protects the credibility of every true complaint. But the drafting must separate a false complaint from an unproven one. A complaint that fails is not a lie. Punishing failure would silence the very students the rules exist to protect.
The third set of defects was flagged from the bench. The Court questioned the provisions on segregation in hostels and classrooms. It also asked whether dropping ragging as a specific form of discrimination, which the 2012 regulations named, was a regressive omission. These are drafting failures. They can be corrected without touching the core of the framework.
The fourth defect is structural. Each Equity Committee is chaired by the head of the institution, and half its ten members come from the reserved categories, women and persons with disabilities. Those same heads run institutions that face penalties, including loss of grants, for non-compliance. A chair with that interest should not be the only decision-maker. Independent members, external audit and public reporting of anonymised outcomes would fix this.
The politics cannot be wished away
The timing is political, and it should be said plainly. Uttar Pradesh votes in 2027. In January, at least ten BJP office-bearers in the state resigned over the rules, and protests spread to Bihar, Delhi and Madhya Pradesh. A committee that surfaces only after that pressure invites the suspicion that its real brief is electoral.
The opposite risk is just as serious. Dalit, Adivasi and OBC communities have long demanded enforceable protection against caste bias on campus. A committee that merely strips out provisions will be read by them as a retreat. A government that dilutes the rules to calm one constituency will have told another that its dignity was negotiable.
What a credible review needs
The Court is seized of the matter and the Centre has the burden. When the case returns after four weeks, the government should place five things on record. It should name the committee, with jurists, educators and members of the affected communities. It should publish terms of reference tied to the Court's questions of law and to the defects set out above. It should fix a deadline that the Court can monitor. It should consult students of every background. And it should state how students are to be protected while the 2012 regime governs.
The Court has done its part. It froze a flawed text and invited correction. The executive has treated the freeze as a pause. The test of this committee is simple. It must make the rules clearer without making the protection weaker. If it does that, it will serve every student. If it does not, the Court should say so.
