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| UGC Equity Framework Legally Unbalanced, Lacks Neutrality in Grievance Architecture: Panun Kashmir | |  Jammu, January 27 (Scoop News)-Panun Kashmir has raised serious constitutional and procedural objections to the recently notified University Grants Commission regulations on equity and inclusion, stating that the framework, as presently designed, fails the tests of neutrality, proportionality, and equal protection under law, and risks institutionalising imbalance within higher education governance.
In a joint statement, Kuldeep Raina, General Secretary Panun Kashmir, and Tito Ganju, Vice Chairman Panun Kashmir, said that while the objective of preventing discrimination is legitimate, the regulatory design itself introduces asymmetry that is constitutionally indefensible.
The organisation pointed out that the mandatory Equal Opportunity Centres and Equity Committees prescribed under the Regulations are structured without inclusive representation, as membership is restricted to specified categories, with no provision for participation from the General Category. According to Panun Kashmir, grievance-redress bodies that exclude sections of the academic community from representation cannot claim institutional impartiality.
Kuldeep Raina stated that equality jurisprudence does not permit pre-classification of guilt or innocence based on group identity. “Any regulatory mechanism that implicitly assumes one group as the exclusive source of discrimination, while excluding it from oversight structures, offends the basic constitutional requirement of even-handedness,” he said.
Vice Chairman Tito Ganju underscored that the Regulations confer wide investigative and recommendatory powers on internal committees without embedding countervailing procedural protections. “The absence of safeguards against motivated or unsubstantiated complaints places the framework in conflict with settled principles of natural justice, particularly the requirement of fairness, balance, and reasoned action,” he observed.
Panun Kashmir further argued that affirmative frameworks must remain corrective rather than coercive. “Equity, in constitutional terms, is a remedial tool, not a perpetual regulatory presumption. When corrective measures evolve into structural bias, they lose both legal legitimacy and moral force,” Ganju said.
The organisation also flagged the systemic implications of repeatedly weakening merit as an organising principle of higher education. It warned that regulatory regimes perceived as punitive or skewed inevitably push aspirational families and students away from domestic institutions, thereby undermining academic competitiveness and national capacity-building.
Rejecting the false binary between equity and excellence, Panun Kashmir stated that merit and inclusion are not adversarial concepts. “A framework that protects inefficiency under the banner of equity does not advance social justice; it corrodes institutional standards,” Raina said.
Panun Kashmir called for a comprehensive recalibration of the Regulations, stressing the need for balanced representation, clear definitions, procedural safeguards, and equal accountability across categories. The organisation stated that judicial remedies remain available should the present structure continue to operate without correction.
“A legal framework that abandons neutrality cannot sustain fairness,” the statement concluded. “Equity devoid of balance ceases to be justice.”... |
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