Gujarat High Court seeks reply over GFSU’s ‘Centre of Excellence’ tag

Source: dnaindia.com

The Gujarat High Court on Thursday sought a reply from the state home and education department, and Gujarat Forensic Sciences University (GFSU), after a public interest litigation questioning the ‘Centre of Excellence’ tag granted to the varsity by the state government came up for hearing. The division bench of Acting Chief Justice AS Dave and Justice Biren Vaishnav issued notice to the government departments and GFSU, directing them to file their replies in the matter by July 8.

The petitioner Sandip Munjyasara has claimed that the tag granted to the varsity was in contravention of norms and without following the set procedures as enshrined under the Procedure for Declaration of Centre of Excellence Rules, 2014. Interestingly, once an institute is declared as a ‘Centre of Excellence’, it is exempted from approaching the Admission Committee for Professional Courses (ACPC), which carries out centralised admissions for professional courses.

Sandip has contended that the state home department on May 27 issued a notification declaring GFSU as Institute of Strategic or Security Related Interest. He claimed that this was beyond the jurisdiction of the home department. He also submitted a list of 16 persons who superannuated from the home department and got lucrative positions in GFSU, for which the varsity has not invited any application.

Similarly, he claimed that the education department on June 15 declared the varsity as a ‘Centre of Excellence’. Sandip has argued that such a declaration was not in clear contravention of the procedures laid down for awarding such prestigious tags, but it is also in contravention of an August 2018 judgement of a division bench of the high court.

The division bench of Justice MR Shah and Justice AY Kogje in August last year directed the varsity to approach ACPC and take part in the centralised admission process for carrying out admissions for the professional courses.

In a separate contempt petition filed by the petitioner, the court has issued notice to GFSU for initiating its own admission process without approaching the ACPC.

The Petition
The petitioner Sandip Munjyasara has claimed that the tag granted to the varsity was in contravention of norms and without following the set procedures as enshrined under the Procedure for Declaration of Centre of Excellence Rules, 2014