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January 29, 2026
Siddharth Varadarajan
Hearing petitions – amid protests – by upper caste groups against the University Grants Commission’s latest regulations addressing caste discrimination in higher education institutions, the Supreme Court on Thursday stayed their implementation, finding that they are “vague” and “capable of misuse”. The bench comprising Chief Justice Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi identified four questions they said demand resolution, with the top judge orally saying that if not addressed the regulations could have “very sweeping consequences” by way of ‘dividing society’. At least until the next hearing that will take place in March, the latest regulations stand replaced by their 2012 precursor.
The four questions the bench identified are: (i) does it make sense for clause 3(c) of the Regulations to define ‘caste-based discrimination’ even though 3(e) exhaustively defines ‘discrimination’ and the rest of the rules do not have a specific redressal mechanism for caste-based discrimination? (ii) will the specific definition in 3(c) impact the sub-classification of SC, ST and OBC groups and sufficiently protect EBCs against discrimination? (iii) does the inclusion of the term ‘segregation’ in clause 7(b) violate the constitutional guarantees of equality and fraternity? and (iv) is the omission of ragging from the Regulations despite their existence in separate UGC rules ‘regressive’ and violative of the right to equality?
Lawyer Gautam Bhatia, who writes that the court’s decision to stay the regulations marks “yet another unfortunate example of hugely consequential judicial decisions that take the form of unreasoned interim or ‘stay’ orders”,
