CHENNAI: The B.Tech degrees and Diploma in engineering and technology awarded by Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) up to 2011-2012 academic session will be treated as valid, the All India Council of Technical Education (AICTE) has said in a recent statement. These two distance learning courses were dropped after the University Grants Commission (UGC) raised objections and said they are in violation of norms and technical courses cannot be offered through distance learning mode.
In 2018, however, the Supreme Court recognised the validity of Diploma and B.Tech awarded by IGNOU to candidates who were enrolled up to the academic year 2009-10, according to an order issued by the Policy and Academic Planning Bureau of the AICTE which added that the Court has also granted some relief to petitioners from the 2010-11 and 2011-12 academic sessions.
The council opined that since there is no distance education course in the said subject after these years and these are the last batches who will be granted reliefs. “The AICTE has no objection for B.Tech degree and Diploma to the students who were enrolled up to the academic year 2011-12 with IGNOU as per Supreme Court judgment and hence are treated as valid as a special case but cannot be taken as precedence and not for post-2012,” AICTE asserted.