The Supreme Court has cancelled the engineering degrees of students who earned them through distance learning from three deemed universities after 2005. The court said the amount paid by these students towards tuition will have to be refunded by the universities by May 31, 2018.
Whose Degrees Suspended
The students who had their degrees suspended were from the JRN Rajasthan Vidyapeeth in Udaipur, the Institute of Advanced Studies in Education in Rajasthan’s Churu district and the Allahabad Agricultural Institute in Uttar Pradesh.
Why Degrees Suspended
1. The Supreme Court’s bench, comprising Justice AK Goel and Justice UU Lalit, found that the universities had conducted correspondence courses without proper approval from the authorities concerned.
2. The bench also suspended the engineering degrees of all students who graduated between 2001 and 2005 through distance learning from these three educational institutes.
What Next
1. The bench said the students’ degrees will remain suspended until they clear an examination under the joint supervision of the All India Council for Technical Education and the UGC.
2. The students will have two attempts to clear the exams before January 15, failing which their degrees will stand cancelled.
3. The bench said if the students did not wish to appear for the test, the universities will have to refund the money that the students had deposited towards tuition fees and other charges.
The Supreme Court further ruled that technical education can not be provided through distance learning or correspondence courses.
In 2015, the Punjab and Haryana High Court had already ruled that a degree in computer science obtained through a correspondence course could not be considered to be equal to the one attained by attending regular classes.
