Law and Justice Minister M. Veerappa Moily moved the bill after withdrawing its earlier version, the Representation of the People (Amendment) Bill, 2006. The older version of the bill was withdrawn on the recommendations of a parliamentary standing committee which examined the legislation.

“The new bill is more comprehensive and it will enable the NRIs to participate in the democratic process of the country,” the law minister said introducing the bill.

(IANS)

A decision to this effect was taken at a brain-storming session of AIMPLB in New Delhi earlier this month.

Among others, the meeting was attended by union Human Resource Development Minister Kapil Sibal as well as Minister of State for Minority Affairs Salman Khurshid.

Maulana Rasheed, who also heads Lucknow’s oldest Islamic seminary popularly known as “Firangi Mahal”, said: “The new education board would be empowered to grant affiliation to both religious and non-religious educational institutions.”

“The idea behind setting up such a board is to ensure uniform national curriculum in madrassas and other Islamic educational institutions across the country,” he said.

According to Maulana Rasheed: “The proposed education board would also devise schemes and programmes to promote literacy among Muslim women too.”

A committee has been constituted to prepare a blue-print for the proposed education board.

Among its members are Central Law University, Vidhisha, Vice Chancellor Faizan K. Mustafa, former Uttar Pradesh Minorities Commission chairman S.M.A. Kazmi, retired high court judge Fakhruddin, leading educationist E.A. Inamdar and Supreme Court advocate Niaz Farooqui. (IANS)

The University Grants Commission (UGC) alone has the statutory power to grant the status of deemed university to an institution and revoke it and these functions of the commission cannot be outsourced to a review panel, the universities said.

“The function of the UGC could not be usurped by a committee set up outside the act (UGC Act, 1956)”, senior counsel K.K. Venugopal, appearing for the universities, said before an apex court bench of Justice Dalveer Bhandari and Justice Deepak Verma.

The senior counsel said the government could not appoint a committee to decide the fate of the deemed universities. He said the government’s action infringed upon the scope of the UGC Act.

He said that P.N. Tandon, who headed the review committee which gave a report suggesting derecognition of some deemed universities, was himself a head of the National Brain Research Centre that was established by the department of biotechnology in Haryana in 1997 and enjoyed the status of a deemed university.

Venugopal told the apex court that Tandon could not have gone into the fate of the similarly placed institutions.

The senior counsel even questioned the procedure and methodology adopted by the Tandon committee.

He said that the recognition granted by the UGC could not be revoked by the human resource development ministry on the recommendation of Tandon committee.

Venugopal appeared for some of the 44 institutions which are threatened with the prospects of losing their deemed university status.

Earlier, Solicitor General Gopal Subramanium told the court that the power to revoke the deemed university status was inherent in the power to grant such a status.

He said that there need not be any specific provision under the statute permitting the power to derecognise the deemed university status.

The solicitor general said that the fundamental question was whether a committee be appointed to go into the working of deemed universities, collect material and act on it.

He said it involved the question whether there was justified and sufficient material and whether principle of natural justice including issuance of show cause were followed before revoking the deemed university status of an institution.

Subramanium said that all these questions needed to be answered before taking on merit the question of each of the institutions facing prospect of derecognition.

The Tandon committee’s recommendation last year to derecognise the petitioner universities was accepted by the government in principal.

The court was hearing a matter related to a public interest litigation questioning the quality of educational facilities in deemed universities. (IANS)

On July 26, the apex court asked the ministry to produce an army notification that makes women ineligible for permanent commission in the regular army.

The court direction came during the hearing on an appeal filed by the army against a verdict of the high court in which it was directed to extend permanent commission to women officer in the regular army.

The Indian Air Force has already granted permanent commission to women.

The ministry took the stand that a notification issued in pursuance of Section 12 of the Army Act, 1950 excluded women from getting permanent commission in the regular army.

On the face of it, the notification appeared to be in breach of constitutional provisions guaranteeing equality before law but it was not so, the ministry told the court.

Additional Solicitor General Parag Tripathi told the apex court that Section 12 of the Army Act was protected by constitutional provisions that permitted certain restrictions on employment in defence services.

Article 33 of the constitution empowers parliament to modify the fundamental rights conferred on the citizens, he claimed.

On Tripathi’s submission, the court said these objections should have been raised at the threshold challenging the maintainability of the petition before the high court.

Counsel for respondent Babita Puniya said there was not even a whisper of these objections before the high court.
(IANS)

The Court has also questioned the validity of P K Tondon Committee, whose report became basis of de-recognition plea.

There is plan to open online library at every district to keep legal professionals and students abreast of all kind of developments in legal world.