Court asks UGC to include Amity name in website

New Delhi, July 3 (IANS) Delhi High Court Tuesday directed the University Grants Commission (UGC) for listing Amity University, Uttar Pradesh, in the list of universities on its website.

Amity had submitted in the court that though it was recognised under the UGC Act with the power to award degrees, the non-inclusion of its name in the UGC List (which is a non-statutory list) was creating problems for its students as some universities were denying them admission for further education because the name of Amity was not on the UGC website.

Allowing the petition filed by Amity University, Justice Badar Durrez Ahmed observed: "It is beyond the pale of any debate that UGC is a public body and performs public functions and although it has discretion in maintaining or not maintaining a list of universities, once the discretion in exercised, it must be reasonable and not arbitrary.

"...it is not open to UGC to pick and choose and arbitrarily and unreasonably deny inclusion of the petitioner's name in the said list even though it falls within the definition of the word "university" given in section 2(f) of the UGC Act."