Fix the UGC's caste discrimination rules if they must be fixed. Do not let a committee bury them

The Supreme Court asked a fair question on Thursday. “Why don’t you revisit the UGC Regulations?” the bench of Chief Justice Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi asked the Centre, saying every student’s interest had to be protected. Solicitor General Tushar Mehta replied that the government was considering a committee to review the University Grants Commission’s rules against caste discrimination on campuses, so that no section feels left out.

A review can improve the rules. It can also become the place where they quietly die. Which one this turns out to be depends on what the government does next.

How the rules got here

The UGC (Promotion of Equity in Higher Education Institutions) Regulations, 2026 were notified on 13 January to replace a 2012 notification. They grew out of a public interest petition filed in 2019 by the mothers of Rohith Vemula and Payal Tadvi, two students whose families say caste discrimination drove them to take their own lives. The new rules require every college and university to set up Equal Opportunity Centres and Equity Committees and to inquire into complaints.

Sixteen days later the court kept the regulations in abeyance, calling them prima facie “vague” and “capable of misuse” and warning that they risked “dividing the society”. The 2012 rules, which the families had gone to court because they found them too weak, continue in the meantime.

The fair objection

The petitioners have a point worth taking seriously. The definition of caste-based discrimination in the rules covers students from the Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Other Backward Classes, and they argue that it leaves a student from the general category with no remedy. A rule meant to secure equality should not look as though it offers some students a hearing and others none.

That is an argument for widening the protection, not for weakening it. Any student harassed for caste, religion, gender, disability or language should be able to complain. That change can be made in a few lines, without dismantling the Equal Opportunity Centres or the duty to inquire.

What should not come back is the idea of punishing “false” complaints. It was removed from the draft for good reason. Disha Wadekar, the lawyer for the two families, put it plainly: “Having a ‘false cases’ section will deter them from filing any complaint.” A committee can already dismiss a frivolous complaint at the first stage.

What the review must do

First, it needs a deadline measured in weeks, not an open brief. Nine months have passed since the stay, and every month under the 2012 rules is a month in which the families’ petition has, in practice, been lost.

Second, its members and its report should be public, and it should hear students who have faced discrimination, not only institutions and petitioners.

Third, it should address the weakness the former UGC chairman Sukhdeo Thorat has pointed to: complaints are handled under heads of institutions who may have reasons to keep them quiet. An appeal to someone outside the college would do more for fairness than any change of wording.

The bench said the younger generation must be looked after. The students these rules were written for are part of that generation too.