The Central Universities (Amendment) Act, 2014 (Act no. 35 of 2014), was enacted with the view to amend the provisions of Original Act i.e. ‘The Central Universities Act, 2009’. The Amending Act has received assent of President of India on 17th December, 2014. The Original Act is making provisions for establishment and incorporation of universities for teaching and research in various States, including The Guru Ghasidas Vishwavidyalaya in the State of Chhattisgarh, Doctor Harisingh Gour Vishwavidyalaya in the State of Madhya Pradesh and Hemvati Nandan Bahuguna University in the State of Uttarakhand.
Since the education has now became the constitution right as have been covered under Article 21 of the Act, the Government is strictly required to provide for national institutions imparting education and teaching amongst the citizen of the India. Besides, the Constitution of India has provided for directive principles, wherein also the State is require to make provision for educational institutions. Educating citizen of a country will serve as refining the blood in the body of the State. As such the law making authority has considered the need to established the Central level Universities for providing educational facilities to the citizen in various States.
The aforesaid Universities were established and incorporated as body having all features similar to that of company or corporate body. Such establishment is provided under Section 3 of the Parent Act. The Universities are provided with their respective jurisdictions up on which such Universities to impart education. The Other Universities are also expected under the provisions of section 3 of that Act, to be established in the respective States as have been numbered under the First Schedule of that Act. Moreover, in the year 2009 itself, by the Central Universities (Amendment) Act, 2009 (Act no. 38 of 2009), for the State of Jammu and Kashmir a Central University was required to established and was to be named as ‘The Central University of Kashmir’ with the limited jurisdiction extending to Kashmir Division of the State of Jammu and Kashmir. The new section i.e. Section 3A was inserted with that regard. Also the Central University of Jammu was also required to established for the Jammu Division of the State of Jammu and Kashmir.
Now, by this Amending Act of 2014, another new provision is added to the Original Act, after Section 3A thereof. The new Section being Section 3B of the Act is to deal with establishment of Central University for the State of Bihar with name ‘ The Central University of South Bihar ’ with the territorial or local jurisdiction extending to the territories in the South of River Ganges in the State of Bihar. And a corporate body being University to be established under this provision named as ‘Mahatma Gandhi Central University’ having its territorial Jurisdiction over the territories in North of the River Ganges in the same State i.e. State of Bihar. And accordingly, the First Schedule annexed with the Original Act was also amended to add the respective Universities in the State of Bihar.
As such now, there are fourteen entries in the First Schedule annexed with the Original Act which originally was providing for twelve entries. The entry ‘1A’ has been added by this Amending Act and the Original 1st Entry was replaced by newer one, as such both the entries are now dealing with the State of Bihar. Similarly, the First Schedule was amended in the year 2009 by Amending Act of 2009 and that Act provided a new entry ‘5A’ and the Original 5th Entry in the Original Act was replaced and thereby both that entries were to provide Central Universities for the State of Jammu and Kashmir.
There are presently total 45 Central or Union Universities, and all such Central Universities governed by the aforesaid legal framework and are coming under the purview of the Department of Higher Education in the Union Human Resource Development Ministry.
by Faim Khalilkhan Pathan.