HECI and the faultlines: A legal reckoning

India is at the threshold of a fundamental reconfiguration of its higher and professional education landscape. The government, by proposing a sweeping legislative framework referred to as the Viksit Bharat Shiksha Adhishthan Bill, is poised to dissolve multiple statutory bodies including the University Grants Commission (UGC), the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) and the National Council for Teacher Education (NCTE), consolidating their regulatory powers under a single command - the Higher Education Commission of India (HECI).

The reform, though being marketed as bold and modernising, risks centralising power in ways that may jeopardise institutional autonomy, academic freedom and federal balance. Way more than mere restructuring, this is constitutional re-engineering at the cost of constitutional humility.

The origins of these regulatory frameworks are not arbitrary, contrary to what is being presented. The Radhakrishnan Commission (1948-49) insisted that universities must be insulated from immediate political pressures to serve as spaces for free inquiry. The Kothari Commission (1964-66) echoed this vision, emphasising that education is India’s most powerful instrument of social transformation and cautioning against excessive centralisation. AICTE, NCTE and other professional councils were subsequently created to ensure quality and standardisation across technical, teacher and professional education while preserving institutional discretion. These bodies endeavoured to strike a balance by providing regulatory oversight without domination.

None of these institutions was flawless. Bureaucratic inertia, uneven enforcement and procedural rigidity weakened their credibility. Yet, portraying them collectively as failures warranting abolition is intellectually dishonest. Over decades, successive governments, regardless of ideology, criticised these bodies, restructured their functions, expanded accreditation mechanisms and debated reforms, but not a single regime proposed wholesale dissolution. Even in periods of liberalisation, the guiding principle remained reform and not dismantle.

The current legislative status of the Bill is critical to understand. The Viksit Bharat Shiksha Adhishthan Bill, 2025 has been approved by the Union Cabinet and introduced in Parliament. It has now been referred to a Joint Parliamentary Committee for detailed scrutiny which is expected to submit its recommendations in the early part of the 2026 Budget Session. Until the Bill is debated, passed by both Houses and assented to by the President, it remains a proposal, but one whose contours already signal a profound shift in governance.

Under the proposed framework, a single authority would establish standards, monitor compliance, enforce discipline and recommend closure of institutions across universities, technical colleges, teacher training institutes and professional programs, representing a decisive departure from historical precedent. Crucially, the regulator will operate under executive oversight without independent financial autonomy. From a legal standpoint, this merges rule-making, supervision and punitive authority across multiple domains into one body - a consolidation the Indian judiciary has consistently treated with caution.

In TMA Pai Foundation v. State of Karnataka (2002), the Supreme Court affirmed that institutional autonomy is intrinsic to meaningful education. In PA Inamdar v. State of Maharashtra (2005), it cautioned that regulation cannot metamorphose into nationalisation. Even when State intervention was permitted, as in Modern Dental College v. State of Madhya Pradesh (2016), proportionality and restraint were emphasised. These principles are not abstractions; they apply equally to universities, technical colleges, teacher education and professional councils.

Academic freedom seldom disappears through overt censorship. It erodes quietly via conditional approvals, anticipatory compliance and policy-aligned research priorities. A centralised regulator wielding punitive powers over multiple sectors can effectively dictate institutional behaviour without issuing formal instructions. Faculty and administrative appointments risk rewarding conformity over merit and research agendas may increasingly reflect administrative convenience rather than societal need.

Federal considerations compound the concern. Education is on the Concurrent List for a reason. India’s universities and professional institutions operate across diverse linguistic, cultural and socio-economic contexts. Uniform benchmarks imposed by a central authority risk flattening this diversity. Excellence arises from pluralism, not homogenisation.

A deeper ideological shift is evident. The proposed framework treats universities and professional institutes increasingly as service providers, with rankings, employability metrics and output indicators prioritised over intellectual depth and critical thought. The State gradually retreats from funding public education while simultaneously tightening its grip on outcomes - a model that is neither genuine autonomy nor meaningful liberalisation, but managerial governance of knowledge.

The process itself is troubling. A reform of this magnitude, especially in a federal structure like ours, should emerge from extensive parliamentary debate, standing committee scrutiny and stakeholder consultation with states, faculty bodies, professional institutions and students. Instead, it has largely proceeded through executive articulation. When you redesign the architecture of knowledge and professional regulation without democratic deliberation, the problem is constitutional legitimacy, not efficiency.

These statutory bodies undoubtedly required reform and not replacement. A credible framework would have strengthened accountability and parallelly safeguarded autonomy, separated funding from regulation and insulated institutional governance from political interference through transparent appellate mechanisms. The HECI in its current form consolidates power, weakens independence and risks converting universities, technical colleges and professional institutions into compliant extensions of the State.

It is important to note that many of these regulatory and structural shifts are normatively anchored in the National Education Policy, 2020, which envisages institutional autonomy, differentiated regulation and global engagement in higher education; yet only within the bounds of constitutional morality, academic freedom, federal balance and public accountability.

Universities and professional councils are surely not ministries. A nation that governs them too tightly eventually fears its own thinkers. The Indian academic spectrum does not need quieter campuses and compliant classrooms. It needs braver classrooms, independent research and institutions/scholars capable of questioning policy without fear. If this legislative overhaul proceeds as currently drafted, history may remember it not as a milestone of reform, but as the moment when academic and professional freedom were administratively downsized. Once autonomy is lost, it’s curtains for anyone and everyone.

Syed Aqib Hussain is an Advocate practising before the High Court of Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh, and a Doctoral Scholar at SCALSAR, Symbiosis International (Deemed University), Pune.