NEW DELHI: In the Executive Council (EC) meeting held on Saturday, members voiced objections to fee hikes across several academic programmes, criticising the use of emergency powers by the vice-chancellor to implement such decisions without adequate discussion.
A supplementary agenda item revealed steep fee hike for the academic year 2025–26 across programmes like MA (Bengali/MIL/Tamil/CIL), PhD, Integrated Law, and Faculty of Education.
For instance, the MA programme has seen a hike along with additional charges under the University Development Fund and EWS Support categories. The Integrated Law Programme fee has reached `60,870 for 2025–26.
Dr Mithuraaj Dhusiya, an EC member, expressed concern over the unilateral implementation of these hikes using emergency powers, bypassing consultation with the Council. “Students and faculty remain unaware of the rationale behind these increases,” he said, adding that there was no adequate discussion of the impact, particularly with the growing number of self-financing courses. He warned such fee increases threaten the public-funded nature of the university.
The Executive Council members raised concerns about the use of emergency powers by the V-C. In his dissent, Dr Dhusiya pointed out that crucial policy matters, particularly those concerning recruitment and the scheme of examination for non-teaching staff, had been decided without prior discussions, bypassing the Executive Council’s involvement.
The agenda item in question focused on decisions taken by the V-C on recruitment rules and the exam scheme for non-teaching staff, which were notified in May 2025. Dr Dhusiya argued that these changes, which impacted over 5,000 employees, should have been discussed and approved by the Council.