‘Christ’, ‘Symbiosis International’ and more: MHRD clips names of deemed universities

Christ University in Bengaluru will now be called ‘Christ’ and Santosh University in Ghaziabad will just be called ‘Santosh’, according to a new notification issued by the Ministry of Human Resource Development.

In November last year, following a Supreme Court mandate, the University Grants Commission (UGC) issued a notification to 123 deemed-to-be-universities, ordering them to drop the suffix ‘university’ from their name, as they still had not been given university status. However, for 14 of them, the government itself was at fault, as when it announced their deemed-to-be-university status, it referred to them as universities, reported Financial Express.

Deemed-to-be universities conduct their own examinations and award degrees on their own.

The institutions referring to themselves as ‘universities’ was in violation of Section 23 of the UGC Act, which prohibits the use of the word ‘university’ in certain cases.

In order to rectify the error, the UGC asked these institutions to suggest alternate names without ‘university’ in their title. Only four of the alternate names were accepted. For the others, it simply dropped ‘university’ from their names. These institutions were intimated on Friday and a gazette notification can be expected soon, according to the Indian Express.

Most institutions had requested to ‘carry deemed to be university’ in parenthesis along with their name, reported the Indian Express.

The 14 institutions include Christ University and Jain University in Bengaluru, Yenepoya University and NITTE University in Mangaluru, Symbiosis International University in Pune and Manav Rachna International University in Faridabad.

The four institutions whose alternate names have been accepted are - Manav Rachna International University, which will now be called Manav Rachna International Institute of Research and Studies, Lingaya’s University, which will now be called Lingaya’s Vidyapeeth, Jagadguru Sri Shivaratheeshwara University, which will now be called JSS Academy of Higher Education, and Research and Gurukul Kangri Vishwavidyalaya which will now be called Gurukul Kangri Vidyapeeth.