New Delhi: For the second time in a matter of days, and just ahead of the Monsoon Session, a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) has cancelled a scheduled sitting, this time on the Viksit Bharat Shiksha Adhishthan Bill, 2025, (VBSA) which proposes a sweeping overhaul of higher education governance. The 20 July meeting was called off shortly after the committee’s discussion on the Constitution (130th Amendment) Bill was deferred.
The joint 31-member committee is headed by BJP Lok Sabha MP Daggubati Purandeswari.
The Bill aims to constitute a centralised commission (Viksit Bharat Shiksha Adhishthan) with three subordinate councils responsible for regulation, accreditation and standards for higher education in India.
Opposition parties have responded swiftly to this unusual move. “Unprecedented. Was looking through the parliamentary record and could not find any instances of any other Bills which after reaching the ‘Clause by Clause’ deliberation stage were then placed on the back burner, as has happened with two Bills now, the 130th Amendment and VBSA Higher Education Bill,” Trinamool Congress (TMC) MP Sagarika Ghose wrote on X.
Congress MP Jairam Ramesh, too, took a jibe at the NDA government, saying it could not forget the “humiliation” it suffered in the Lok Sabha on 17 April, 2026, a reference to the defeat of the Delimitation Bill introduced by the government.
The defeat of the Bill, Ramesh wrote, has cast a “long shadow that persists in spite of the Union Home Minister’s bluff, brag, and bluster”.
Opposition parties have argued that the Bill gives overarching powers to the Centre to set the overall tone for higher education in India, and at the same time severely restrict the role of state governments in universities.
Ghose has written a dissent note to the JPC, contending that the Bill’s proposals amount to executive overreach and a weakening of India’s federal structure.
The Rajya Sabha MP argues that she is not against reform itself, but that her contention lies in how the Bill is designed. “Reform is necessary. My concern is that reform must remain faithful to the Constitution of India, preserve the federal character of our Republic, protect the autonomy of educational institutions, and uphold the democratic values that sustain knowledge, inquiry and innovation,” Ghose notes in her dissent note.
She outlines five core objections to the Bill. It exceeds Parliament’s constitutional mandate under Entry 66 of the Union List, which allows Parliament only to coordinate and set standards, not govern universities outright, and it “swallows up” Entry 25 of the Concurrent List, and Entry 32 of the State List, she notes.
She also says that the Bill sidelines states, even though state universities teach most of India’s students, and instead hands power to bodies controlled by the Centre. She points out that even though these new bodies would be called autonomous, the Centre still controls their appointments, can issue directions, and even override them.
However, Ghose says the Bill would hurt academic freedom the most. “Universities are not merely administrative bodies. They are constitutional institutions that preserve free inquiry, scientific temper and democratic debate. Academic excellence flourishes where institutions enjoy meaningful autonomy in teaching, research, curriculum and governance,” she writes.
Opposition leaders have called the back-to-back deferrals a “big win”, even as both Bills remain pending before the JPC.
(Edited by Amrtansh Arora)
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