NEW DELHI: With the Centre preparing to move the Viksit Bharat Shiksha Adhishthan Bill, 2025 for passage in the monsoon session of Parliament, a Joint Parliamentary Committee has sought safeguards against excessive centralisation, recommended stronger consultation with states, and protection of institutional autonomy.
According to the draft report circulated among members, the panel recommended changes to key clauses that drew sharp criticism from multiple quarters, including NDA allies, for granting the Centre sweeping powers to override policy disagreements, supersede regulatory bodies, and control funding.
The Bill proposes an overhaul of the higher education sector by dissolving the University Grants Commission, All India Council for Technical Education, and the National Council for Teacher Education to create a single, unified regulatory commission.
While Clause 47 allows the Centre to supersede the Commission or any Council with Presidential approval, the panel recommended that ‘supersession’ should be invoked only in extraordinary circumstances, for a limited duration and as a last resort.
NDA-ruled Andhra Pradesh, several universities, opposition and other stakeholders have characterised the provision as “critical vulnerability” as it allows the Centre to dissolve the regulator entirely without adequate safeguards.
In its recommendation, the panel said, “Clause 47 be comprehensively reviewed and the expressions 290 “unable to discharge functions” and “persistently made default” shall be defined through objective, measurable, and verifiable criteria in the Act or the rules, to eliminate ambiguity, ensure transparency, and prevent arbitrary invocation of the power of supersession.”
It further said that the Clause 47(2)(a) shall be amended may be read as, “The Chairperson of the Commission, or the Presidents of the Councils and other members of the Commission or the Councils, as the case may be, shall, as from the date of ‘supersession’, cease to hold their respective office and desist from exercising all the powers, functions and duties under the provisions of this Act, and their office shall deemed to have been as vacated.”
While Clause 45 empowers the Centre to issue binding directions on questions of policy, the panel called for objective thresholds, procedural safeguards and transparency requirements governing the Centre’s power. It proposed adding the words “for the purposes of this Act” to the provision allowing the government to assign additional functions, to restrict its scope.
The JPC also recommended increasing the number of state government nominees on each of the three councils under the Commission to three.
