The Centre informed the Supreme Court that it will not take any action against 44 C-category deemed universities without permission of the higher judiciary.

A bench comprising Justices Dalveer Bhandari and A K Patnaik, had, earlier, directed the Union Government not to derecognise these varsities unless and until proper arrangements were made to ensure that about two lakh students enrolled in these universities did not suffer because of the government action.

The Centre had also informed the apex court that it had decided to derecognise these universities as they had not been able to provide basic infrastructure such as adequate number of qualified teachers, laboratories and university campus.

Some of the affected students approached the apex court challenging the Government’s decision.

The Government has given three-year time to B-category universities to make up the deficiencies of the basic infrastructure.

The apex court directed both the parties to file their responses by April 13, the next date of hearing.

Some of the deemed universities challenged the power of the Government to strip them off their status of deemed universities.

The expert committee, appointed by the Government, had in its report said some of the varsities were functioning without a Vice-Chancellor, who is the Chief Executive of a university.

UNI