UGC 2026: 'No One Is Being Criminalised'

'Once the actual scope is understood, it becomes evident that the framework is about internal redress and course correction, and in no way criminalisation.'

The Supreme Court bench headed by Chief Justice Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi on January 29 stayed the 2026 University Grants Commission equity regulations, which were notified on January 23, in response to pleas filed against them on the grounds that the UGC adopted a non-inclusionary definition of caste discrimination and that certain categories of people are excluded from institutional protection.

The moment these regulations were notified, they had generated heated debate, especially with regard to the 'equity squads', the compulsory declaration, and the 'equity committee' composition, which does not apparently have any representation from students belonging to the general category.

• PART I: Why UGC's New Equity Rules Finally Have Teeth

In the concluding part of her interview -- which was conducted before the Supreme Court stay -- with Prasanna D Zore/Rediff, Supreme Court Advocate Disha Wadekar addresses the most contentious aspects -- which form the basis of the pleas that challenged the UGC 2026 regulations in the first place -- of the new framework.

From concerns about campus policing to questions of bureaucratic overreach, she explains the legal architecture behind these mechanisms -- and candidly points out where the regulations fall short.

Her assessment is both defence and critique, revealing a nuanced understanding of what law can and cannot achieve in dismantling caste discrimination in India's educational institutions.

'These regulations do not operate in the domain of criminal law'

The 2026 UGC regulations mandate formation of 'equity squads' to stay mobile and visit 'vulnerable spots' -- who decides what a vulnerable spot is? Doesn't this feel more like campus policing than creating an environment of equity?

At the outset, it is important to clarify that the expression 'equity squad' is not language we had proposed. That terminology appears to have been introduced by the UGC in the final regulatory text.

That said, the underlying idea of proactive engagement with the campus environment is not without precedent. The Sukhadeo Thorat (external link) Committee Report of 2008, which examined caste discrimination at AIIMS, had recommended that discrimination cannot be identified solely through formal complaints, and that periodic social audits are necessary to uncover structural and informal practices.

The purpose of such engagement is not surveillance, but understanding.

Questions such as who performs sanitation work on campus, whether infrastructure is accessible to persons with disabilities, or whether certain spaces are informally exclusionary cannot be answered without physically examining the campus.

Importantly, the Thorat Committee envisaged students themselves as participants in this process, recognising that student communities are diverse and often more open to dialogue than institutional administrations.

It is also necessary to bear in mind that students, across categories, are inherently vulnerable within university hierarchies. They operate within structures of authority -- administrative, academic, and disciplinary -- over which they have limited control.

The intention behind campus engagement mechanisms is to foster dialogue, awareness, and sensitisation amongst students, so that experiences of marginalisation are not rendered invisible.

Finally, these regulations do not operate in the domain of criminal law. They provide civil and institutional remedies, not penal sanctions.

The consequences contemplated are corrective and proportionate -- such as warnings, reprimands, or in extreme cases, academic sanctions -- aimed at restoring a non-discriminatory environment.

No one is being criminalised or incarcerated under this framework.

The central objective remains the creation of a safe and responsive institutional ecosystem -- one that individuals like Payal Tadvi did not have access to.

The record before the Court shows repeated representations by her and her family to college authorities over an extended period, without any effective response. These regulations seek to ensure that such grievances are addressed internally and promptly, so that students are not left without recourse within the very institutions meant to protect them.

To many critics, words like 'equity committee, equity squad, equity ambassador' -- this chain sounds exactly like political commissars or the apparatchiks of Communist regimes.
How do you ensure these are not just State-sponsored monitors sent to control the thoughts and speech of students?

From a legal standpoint, any regulation -- however well-intentioned -- can be misused if exercised arbitrarily. That is not unique to these regulations.

The safeguard against such misuse lies not in abandoning regulatory mechanisms altogether, but in ensuring that their operation is bounded by due process.

Similar committee-based structures exist under the POSH framework, the anti-ragging regulations, and other campus governance regimes.

As to the use of the term 'equity,' it is not a novel or partisan insertion. The concept has been part of the 2012 framework as well. Equity, as understood in this context, reflects the Constitutional principle of substantive equality -- that different forms of disadvantage require differentiated responses. It is not a departure from equality, but a method of realising it.

Ultimately, the validity of these mechanisms will turn on how they are operationalised. If they are used to facilitate dialogue, address grievances, and correct institutional failures, they will serve their intended purpose.

If they are applied in a manner that infringes Constitutional freedoms, they will necessarily be subject to challenge. The law already provides those safeguards.

'This crucial clarification often gets lost in the public debate'

The best part that you brought out in this interview is there will be civil remedies. These are not criminal matters.

Absolutely. This is a crucial clarification, and it often gets lost in the public debate. A great deal of the anxiety around these regulations seems to stem from a fundamental misreading of what they actually provide.

If one reads the regulations carefully, it becomes clear that they operate entirely within the realm of civil and administrative remedies. The provisions on consequences are expressly tied to existing frameworks -- relevant UGC regulations, ministry (of education) guidelines in the case of faculty, and the internal by-laws of the institution.

None of these confer any criminal jurisdiction or contemplate criminal sanctions.

These committees do not have the power to prosecute, incarcerate, or initiate criminal proceedings. Their role is limited to institutional accountability -- corrective measures such as warnings, reprimands, or service-related consequences, all of which already exist within established regulatory structures.

Once the actual scope is understood, it becomes evident that the framework is about internal redress and course correction, and in no way criminalisation.

Talking about the clause that deals with confidentiality and transparency -- the regulation allows for the identity of the informant to be kept confidential.
While everybody knows this is important, especially in cases of POSH, how does the university maintain transparency as mandated in Section 7D while simultaneously protecting the anonymity of those involved in a dispute?
How will a defendant defend herself or himself against somebody who is anonymous?

That is a valid concern, and it rests on a misunderstanding of what confidentiality and anonymity mean in regulatory frameworks of this kind. Even under the POSH regime, anonymity does not operate in an absolute sense.

A respondent cannot be expected to defend themselves in an inquiry without knowing the identity of the complainant or the contents of the complaint itself. Disclosure to the respondent and the inquiry body is therefore inherent to the principles of natural justice.

What confidentiality protects against is public disclosure, not procedural disclosure.

The complainant's identity is shielded from the public domain -- it is not to be published, circulated, or made part of institutional or media narratives. This is consistent with long-standing legal practice, including in sexual offence trials, where there is a statutory bar from revealing it in judgements or public records.

Every student and faculty member must now sign a declaration promising to promote equity. Do you believe a signed paper can truly change deep-seated social prejudices, or is it merely a bureaucratic layer?

The declaration should not be viewed in isolation or as a claim that a signed document can, by itself, erase deep-seated social prejudice. That would be an unrealistic expectation. Its function is mostly practical.

Such declarations are not new to higher education. Under the UGC anti-ragging regulations, every student is required to submit a written undertaking that they will not engage in ragging. That requirement has long been accepted as a legitimate tool for setting institutional norms and signalling consequences, even though no one assumes that a declaration alone eliminates ragging.

The purpose of this declaration is educational. It establishes, at the point of entry, that equity and non-discrimination are not abstract ideals but binding institutional expectations.

Much like orientation programmes in universities abroad -- where students are expressly informed that campuses are discrimination-free spaces and that violations will attract consequences -- the declaration operates as a formal acknowledgement of the rules governing that academic environment.

It may well appear bureaucratic, and ideally, a robust orientation process should accompany -- or even take precedence over -- a written declaration. But in the present context, where there is often no meaningful communication about institutional norms at all, even this baseline declaration matters.

'This raises serious concerns of institutional conflict'

Are there any gaps that you feel need to be filled in these regulations?

There are several gaps, and I should begin with a candid disclaimer. In my assessment, these regulations are simultaneously a step forward and, in some respects, a step back from the 2012 framework.

On the positive side, the present regulations introduce a clear enforcement mechanism through the Action against Non-compliance clause, which was the single most significant deficiency of the earlier framework. That is no small advance.

At the same time, the 2012 regulations contained a far more detailed articulation of what discrimination actually looks like within a campus setting. They identified concrete practices -- such as segregation in hostels or messes, bias in viva voce and subjective evaluations, or discriminatory delays in scholarship disbursal to SC, ST, and OBC students -- that are specific to higher educational institutions.

Those illustrations mattered because discrimination in universities rarely presents itself in overt forms; it is often entrenched in routine administrative and academic processes.

While the new regulations adopt a robust conceptual definition of discrimination -- using terms such as differential treatment, preferential treatment, and segregation, drawn from international instruments like UNCERD (UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination) and CEDAW (Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women) -- they stop short of illustrating how these concepts operate in the lived reality of campuses. That omission is significant.

Without examples, it becomes harder for students, faculty, and committees alike to identify and address discriminatory practices that are structurally normalised.

For instance, rank-based hostel allocation is often defended as objective, yet in a reservation framework it can result in the effective ghettoisation of marginalised students.

Explicitly recognising such practices as potential discrimination would have provided much-needed clarity.

A second, and more technical, issue concerns the composition and functioning of the equity committees. As the regulations currently stand, the head of the institution chairs the committee, while also being the authority to whom the committee's report is submitted and who ultimately acts upon it. This raises serious concerns of institutional conflict.

In comparable frameworks -- such as the POSH regime -- the employer or institutional head is deliberately excluded from committee membership precisely to preserve independence. Combining inquiry, oversight, and decision-making in a single authority is a structural flaw that will likely require reconsideration.

The third concern relates to the definition of the 'aggrieved person'. While the regulations adopt a broad formulation, it would have been preferable -- and legally clearer -- to explicitly state that this includes students, teaching staff, and non-teaching staff. Given the realities of caste and labour hierarchies on campuses, particularly affecting non-teaching staff, precision here would have strengthened the framework.

Finally, there is the question of representation. It is an improvement that the regulations now envisage multi-member committees with student and external representation. However, the requirement that representation based on caste, gender, or other axes of disadvantage be included only 'as far as possible' weakens the intent.

Experience from other regulatory frameworks shows that representation cannot be left to discretion alone. For instance, POSH regulations mandate that the chairperson be a woman for a reason. A clearer stipulation -- such as requiring a minimum proportion of members from marginalised backgrounds -- would have better aligned the committee's composition with its purpose.