In August 2019, Radhika Vemula and Abeda Salim Tadvi, the mothers of Rohith Vemula and Payal Tadvi, filed a public interest litigation in the Supreme Court.
The petitioners, both of whose children had died by suicide, allegedly after being subjected to caste discrimination in the campuses in which they were studying, made a list of demands aimed at combating discrimination in Indian educational institutions.
Key among these demands was the enforcement of 2012 University Grants Commission regulations that sought to protect vulnerable students from discriminatory behaviour.
In January 2025, the case was heard in court, only the second time in the six years since the petition was filed. During the hearing, the Supreme Court pulled up the UGC for not having filed its responses in the case.
The following month, the UGC released a draft of a set of regulations titled “Promotion of Equity in Higher Education Institutions Regulations, 2025”. The regulations noted that they were intended to replace the 2012 regulations.
This was a puzzling step. The petitioners had not sought the issuing of new regulations – rather, they had sought the enforcement of the 2012 regulations, even as they pointed out lacunae in them. Neither had the court directed the UGC to formulate new regulations.
Educationists were particularly perturbed because while the 2012 regulations contained several clauses that defined discrimination and different kinds of discriminatory behaviour, the draft regulations did not include such definitions.
N Sukumar, a professor at Delhi University and author of Caste Discrimination and Exclusion in Indian Universities: A Critical Reflection, noted that the 2012 regulations contained “detailed definitions of what constituted discrimination, harassment, ragging, unfavourable treatment and victimisation. There were also detailed descriptions of how casteism takes place.” In the new draft, however, “these terms are loosely defined”, he added.
Without proper definitions of the various dimensions of the problem, Sukumar noted, “There is hardly any scope to address the issues of caste on the campus.”
Definitions of discrimination
The 2012 regulations defined discrimination as “distinction, exclusion, limitation and preference which has the purpose or effect of nullifying or impairing quality of treatment in education”.
The UGC also went into significant detail on various forms that caste discrimination can take. This included breaching reserved quotas in admissions, processing an application in a biased manner, using students’ identities as a criteria in deciding on admissions, withholding and refusing to return documents to students, demanding excess money and denying or limiting access to benefits.
The UGC also listed several other forms of discrimination that were prohibited, such as harassing or victimising a student by announcing their caste or religion or the region to which they belonged, earmarking seats for students in reading rooms based on their identity, and allocating the utilisation of sports equipment based on such criteria.
Further, the regulations acknowledged that discrimination often occurs during evaluation of exams, and directed faculty to ensure that students are graded fairly and that the declaration of results was not delayed. They also strictly forbade segregation in hostels, messes and other common areas, and targeted ragging or discrimination against students who sought to participate in cultural programmes.
“The 2012 regulations were not at 100%, there was room for improvement,” Sukumar said. “But there was minute detailing, which is extremely essential in addressing caste on campuses. The new draft has superficial definitions of what caste is.”
Sukumar noted that such details were entirely missing in the new draft regulations. Rather, the new draft simply defines discrimination as “unfair, differential, or biased treatment”.
Dhiraj Singh, an alumnus of the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur, who has been campaigning for diversity and inclusion in the IITs, echoed this concern. “How do you establish discrimination if it is so vaguely defined?” he said. “What does differential treatment mean? There is a serious lacuna in the draft.”
The 2012 regulations also defined other kinds of harmful behaviour, such as harassment and unfavourable treatment.
For instance, it defines harassment as “unwanted conduct which is persistent and demeans, humiliates or creates a hostile and intimidating environment or is calculated to induce submission by actual or threatened adverse consequences”.
Meanwhile, it notes that forms of unfavourable treatment could include denial of training and opportunities for advancement, unfavourable probationary reports and exclusion by peers.
The new regulations, however, do not mention or define any other such forms of mistreatment.
The omission of OBC students
The new regulations also contain flaws that were present in the 2012 regulations, which experts had sought to have rectified – for instance both sets of rules state that they will only apply to members of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes.
Teachers and students have criticised this provision, noting that students from Other Backward Class communities can also face severe discrimination.
On March 1, the All India OBC Students Association wrote to the UGC stating that “the current definition of caste discrimination in the draft regulations excludes OBC communities, which would be a historical mistake by the UGC”.
It noted, further, that in some states, certain Other Backward Class communities are categorised as Scheduled Castes or Scheduled Tribes. “Therefore, the definition must explicitly include OBCs to ensure comprehensive protection against caste-based discrimination,” the letter stated.
Educationists and students have also criticised the composition of the committee that drafted the new regulations.
The 2012 regulations, they note, were drawn up by a committee headed by Dr Sukhdeo Thorat, a former chairman of the UGC, who has worked extensively on the subject of caste on campuses. Thorat has also filed an intervention in Radhika Vemula and Abeda Salim Tadvi’s Supreme Court petition, seeking to make submissions in the matter.
In contrast, a report in The Wire noted that one of the members of the new committee has been accused of not adhering to reservation rules in the college of which he is the principal, while another is a former vice-president of the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad. A third, meanwhile, was earlier a member of a committee set up by the Maharashtra government to examine whether Scheduled Tribe students were availing of reservations in education after converting to Islam or Christianity.
False complaints
Another major concern for educationists and students is the UGC’s directive to educational institutions in the new draft regulations to act against complainants if they determine that a complaint was false. The 2012 regulations did not contain any such provisions.
“Anyone who makes a false complaint of discrimination shall be liable to a fine as may be determined by the Equity Committee,” the regulations state, referring to the committee responsible for managing equal opportunity cells.
Prajwal Gaikwad, a student member of the Ambedkar Students Association, University of Hyderabad, one of the oldest anti-caste student organisations in the country, noted that similar provisions also existed in UGC regulations on curbing ragging in institutions of higher education, as well as the regulations governing internal complaints committees for sexual harassment. “However, there is a lot more emphasis on it in this draft,” he said.
He noted, for instance, that in the case of regulations to tackle sexual harassment, “the punishment for false complaints is left to the discretion of the committee. There is no specific direction prescribed to what action should be taken.”
In the new regulations, he said, when even basic definitions were not in place, “What is the urgency to define penalty for false cases? It is likely to be misused by the committee.”
Further, he raised concerns that under the regulations, any complaint that is not found maintainable, even for a paucity of clear evidence, might be treated as false. “If any complaint does not qualify in the terms of the equity committee as discrimination, will it be considered false?” Gaikwad said. “How does it ensure protection for the complainant if the redressal does not proceed under trial?”
Composition of equity committees
Educationists are also concerned about provisions in the new regulations pertaining to the setting up of the equity committees. The 2012 regulations had provisions for equal opportunity cells overseen by an anti-discriminatory officer – students could make complaints to these cells, which would investigate them and recommend remedial actions, if needed, to the institutions.
The committees that the new regulations mandate will have a chairperson, who is the head of the institution, four faculty members, two civil society members, two student representatives and a member secretary. Out of these, one member has to be a woman and one has to belong to either a Scheduled Caste or a Scheduled Tribe.
“The composition of the committee is unacceptable,” Gaikwad said. “If only one member can be from an SC or ST background, it means that the majority would be from dominant caste groups and there is a higher chance that cases will get dismissed.”
Teachers also criticised the fact that the committees were to have two student representatives who would be nominated based on their “academic merit/excellence in sports/performance in co-curricular activities”. “This is highly problematic. How can this be a criterion?” Sukumar said.
In contrast, in internal complaints committees for sexual harassment, he noted, students are elected, which ensures that the student body has a say in who would be representing them.
Further, under the rules, student representative attendance is not mandatory for quorum in meetings – rather, they can be conducted if the chairperson and four other members are present. “So student voices will not be represented fairly,” Gaikwad said.
Sukumar also said that he disagrees with the provision to make the head of the institution the ex-officio chairperson of the committee. “The head should be someone who understands caste, who has credentials to show that they are trained to handle such cases,” he said. “And I feel that the head should be someone from a marginalised background and not from the general category.”
In fact, Sukumar argued that 70% of the committee should comprise members of marginalised groups such as Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, Other Backward Classes and women. He suggested that instead of four or five members, committees could comprise between 12 and 15 members.
No consequences
Like the 2012 regulations, the new regulations also lack concrete provisions on how perpetrators of discrimination will be penalised, teachers and students noted. “There is no mention of how institutions are going to ensure there is no discrimination and what penal action will be taken against the perpetrators,” Singh said.
In this regard, activists and educationists are particularly disappointed because they have for years demanded the enactment of the Rohith Act, to ensure stricter penalties for caste discrimination on campuses.
Gaikwad noted that ragging and sexual harassment had been criminalised through laws as well as UGC regulations. “Why not caste discrimination?” Gaikwad said. “The language of the draft does not seem to look at caste as a criminal offence.”
Maroona Murmu, a professor from Jadavpur University, argued that such measures were needed to ensure decisive action from authorities. Murmu’s views are informed by her own experience of discrimination, and her efforts to bring the perpetrators to justice – after facing casteist behaviour online in 2020, she filed a case under the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989, which she has been fighting since. “Despite having all the evidence, I’m still fighting my case,” she said. “It is so difficult to prove casteism, which is why it is also very important to ensure that every one of these committees is sensitised.”
Radhika Vemula and Abeda Salim Tadvi’s petition also threw light on a much broader systemic problem – the failure of the National Assessment and Accreditation Council to evaluate institutions on their inclusivity.
The 2012 regulations contained no provisions to address this problem, the petition noted.
Further, they did not protect faculty that might face discrimination. “It does not acknowledge the prevalence of caste based discrimination against faculty and other employees of a HEI (higher education institution) which is equally prevalent in HEIs,” the petition said.
Similarly, the new draft regulations also only state that the measures it proposes apply to students, though in its notice to all the institutions informing them about the regulations, the UGC mentions that it wants to ensure safety for “students, faculty members, and staff”.
Sukumar said that rather than issue new regulations that were not sought, the UGC should conduct a careful study of how institutions have tackled the problem in the last ten years through a “social audit”. This information, he added, would allow the body to determine what steps forward it should take. “If the UGC is serious, it will first study the problem and then come out with solutions,” he said.
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