New Delhi: The row over the University Grants Commission’s (UGC) new rules to combat caste discrimination on campuses has reached the top court of the country.
Advocate Vineet Jindal via a petition filed in the top court on 26 January, under the writ petition jurisdiction, has urged the Supreme Court to read down and suitably amend Regulation 3(c) of the University Grants Commission (Promotion of Equity in Higher Education Institutions) Regulations, 2026, “so as to define caste-based discrimination” in a caste-neutral, inclusive, and constitutionally compliant manner, extending protection and grievance redressal mechanisms to all persons subjected to discrimination on the basis of caste, irrespective of caste identity”.
The new rules framed by the UGC are aimed at dealing with discrimination in colleges and universities and especially at eliminating caste-based discrimination and ensuring equal treatment of all students and staff in higher education.
These rules were framed after the mothers of Rohith Vemula and Payal Tadvi petitioned the Supreme Court after their children died of alleged caste-based discrimination in 2016 and 2019.
In September 2025, the Supreme Court directed the UGC to tighten anti-discrimination rules, including policies on ragging and caste bias, in higher educational institutions within eight weeks.
After this, the UGC notified the rules on 13 January.
What the plea states
The plea in the top court also states that the 2026 regulations “adopt an exclusionary, asymmetric, and caste-specific definition of caste-based discrimination, thereby denying equal protection of law to a substantial section of citizens solely on the basis of caste”.
The petitioner argues this excludes general category individuals, violates fundamental rights (right to equality, discrimination by the state on grounds of religion, race, caste, sex, or place of birth), and seeks a caste-neutral definition offering protection to all facing caste bias.
It also alleged that the regulation violates Article 21 (the right to life and personal liberty, which includes the right to live with dignity) of the Constitution.
On this ground, the plea states “Article 21 to encompass the right to live with dignity, including psychological integrity and equal access to institutional safeguards, all of which are systematically denied to non-reserved students under the impugned regime.”
“By restricting caste-based discrimination exclusively to these groups, the regulations perversely legitimise reverse discrimination while failing to promote full equity and inclusion envisaged in the National Education Policy, 2020, thereby defeating their own professed purpose and perpetuating caste divisions rather than eradicating them.”
“Such a definition institutionalises exclusion at the threshold, creates a hierarchy of victimhood, and introduces a constitutionally impermissible bias into a regulatory framework that purports to be neutral and inclusive. The impugned provision proceeds on an untenable presumption that caste-based discrimination can operate only in one direction, thereby foreclosing, as a matter of law, the possibility that persons belonging to general or upper castes may also be subjected to caste-based hostility, abuse, intimidation, or institutional prejudice. This presumption not only ignores the evolving social realities but also undermines the broader objective of the regulations themselves.”
The plea notes that despite a demonstrable rise in caste-related complaints within higher education reflected even in UGC’s own data, the impugned regulations provide no grievance redressal mechanism whatsoever for caste-based abuse suffered by persons outside the SC/ST/OBC categories.
Therefore, it says “that by excluding them at the definitional stage itself, the regulations create a legal vacuum wherein certain citizens are rendered remediless purely on account of their caste identity. Such exclusion fails the test of reasonableness under Article 14… and strikes at the very core of equality before law and equal protection of laws.”
(Edited by Viny Mishra)
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