uproar-against-new-ugc-equity-regulations-grows

Opposition to the new University Grants Commission (UGC) Regulations, notified on January 13, 2026, is growing, as evident in petitions being filed in the Supreme Court, challenging their constitutional validity. 

The 2026 Regulations has superseded the University Grants Commission (Promotion of Equity in Higher Education Institutions) Regulations, 2012 with the stated objective of fostering equity, inclusion, and a discrimination-free academic environment across higher educational institutions in line with the National Education Policy, 2020.

The latest petition has been filed by an advocate named Vineet Jindal, who says that Regulation 3(c) of the UGC (Promotion of Equity in Higher Education Institutions) Regulations, 2026, allows for an exclusionary, asymmetric and caste-specific definition of ‘caste-based discrimination’ that denies equal protection of law to a substantial section of citizens solely on the basis of caste. 

The petition submitted that “by design and operation, this definition accords legal recognition of victimhood exclusively to certain reserved categories and categorically excludes persons belonging to general or upper castes from it protective ambit, regardless of the nature, gravity, or context of discrimination suffered by them”.

 

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Arguing that the new Regulations proceeds on an untenable presumption that caste-based discrimination could operate only in one direction, the petition says “this presumption ignores the evolving social realities… The definition is manifestly arbitrary and violative of Article 14 of the Constitution”.

It forecloses, as a matter of law, the possibility that persons belonging to general or upper castes may also be subjected to caste-based hostility, abuse, intimidation, or institutional prejudice, the petition added, further saying “it creates a hostile classification founded solely on caste, without any intelligible differentia and without a rationale nexus to the professed objective of promoting equity in higher education”.