New Delhi, Oct. 5: The human resource development ministry has asked the CBI to probe alleged repeated violations of norms by the Council of Architecture in an unparalleled move against a government standard-setting agency.

The HRD ministry has sent the CBI a list of allegations against the council and its officials, requesting that the agency probe the manner in which a “coterie” is running India’s apex architecture body.

This is the first time the HRD ministry has itself approached the country’s premier investigative agency for a probe against a body that comes under its own administrative ambit.

The demand for a CBI probe follows a nearly six-year-long tussle, including legal battles, among different arms of the government to wield the power to recognise institutions and courses concerning architecture.

Documents available with The Telegraph show that the principal allegation against the Council of Architecture involves granting institutions and courses legitimacy without enjoying the authority to do so.

Other charges against the council include not holding organisational elections as mandated by the Architecture Act of 1972 and the rules that accompany the law, and running the agency like a coterie of non-elected individuals.

According to the documents, the council has also removed the ministry’s representatives from decision-making bodies.

Vijay Shrikrishna Sohoni, the council’s president at the centre of most of the ministry’s allegations, denied that the agency had breached any norms and dared the government to launch a probe.

“We have nothing to hide. If they (the CBI) want to conduct an inquiry, they are most welcome,” Sohoni told The Telegraph.

The ministry contends that the council was mandated with limited responsibilities under the government and alleges that the body is working beyond its sanctioned powers.

Ministry circulars state that the council has been vested with powers “to register architects and also to prescribe standards of professional conduct and etiquette and the code of ethics for architects”.

The council, ministry officials said, is similar to the Bar Council of India — a professional body that sets standards for practising in India but does not have the power to directly legitimise institutions or courses.

Only the University Grants Commission (UGC) and the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) are mandated by the government to participate in the process of recognising degree-offering architecture institutions and courses, according to the ministry.

In recognising institutions and courses, the UGC or the AICTE are required to follow norms set by the Council of Architecture, but the council is not expected to involve itself directly in the process of recognition, ministry officials said.

But the council, over the past few years, has taken on the role of the UGC and the AICTE and has started recognising institutions and courses related to architecture, the ministry has alleged. This has led to a situation where institutions “recognised” by the council are held illegal by the UGC and the AICTE.

Sohoni, however, appears to be drawing confidence from a 2004 Madras High Court judgment that dubbed the council the “final authority in the regulation of architectural education in India”.

The AICTE had challenged this order in 2005 in the Supreme Court where the case is pending.

“They (the HRD ministry) are welcome to make allegations. But as far as we are concerned, we were set up under a law and we are following that law,” Sohoni said.