NEW DELHI: Terming as “vague and capable of misuse”, the Supreme Court on Thursday 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.
“If we don’t intervene, it will lead to dangerous impacts…. It will divide society and will have grave impacts,” said a Bench of Chief Justice of India Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi.
The Bench issued notices to the Centre 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.
“Unity of India must be reflected in educational institutions…. In a country after 75 years, all that we have achieved is to become a classless society…. Are we becoming a regressive society? Worst thing which is happening in ragging is that children coming from south or north-east… they carry their culture and somebody who is alien to this starts commenting on them… There are inter-caste marriages also and we have also been in hostels where all stayed together,” the CJI said.
The top 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.
Thursday’s top 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.
Notified on January 13, 2026, the University Grants Commission (Promotion of Equity in Higher Education Institutions) Regulations, 2026, applied to all higher educational institutions across India.
Regulation 3(c) of the UGC regulations-2016 said, “caste-based discrimination” means “discrimination only on the basis of caste or tribe against the members of the scheduled castes, scheduled tribes and other backward classes”.
It aimed to “eradicate discrimination only on the basis of religion, race, gender, place of birth, caste, or disability, particularly against the members of scheduled castes and scheduled tribes, socially and educationally backward classes, economically weaker sections, persons with disabilities, or any of them, and to promote full equity and inclusion amongst the stakeholders in higher education institutions”.
The UGC regulations-2026 required higher educational institutions to set up equal opportunity centres and equity committee for effective implementation of policies and programmes for disadvantaged groups, and to look into discrimination complaints.
The petitioners contended that the UGC regulation in its present “exclusionary form” denied grievance redressal and institutional protection to persons belonging to non-SC/ST/OBC categories.
Rather, caste-based discrimination be defined in a caste-neutral and constitutionally compliant manner so that protection is accorded to all persons discriminated on the basis of caste, irrespective of caste identity, they submitted.