Ravenshaw University

Cuttack, Aug. 26: Orissa High Court is due to give its order on the legality of termination of MoUs signed by Ravenshaw University with private service providers for running self-financing courses.

The university formalised agreements for three years on August 29, 2011, with Heritage Vision Education Trust for running bachelors in business administration (BBA), BSc (information science and telecommunication), MA (journalism and mass communication), and MSc (electronic and telecommunication).

For BSc (information technology and management) the university had executed a similar agreement with Star Computers Institute Private Limited.

The MoUs were to expire on August 29, 2014, but on May 27, 2014, the registrar issued letters to the private organisations stating that the university would run the courses from the current academic session 2014-15 directly.

After the court of the Cuttack district judge on June 27 this year dismissed a petition from the two organisations, they had approached the high court.

The single judge bench of Justice S.C. Parija closed hearing on the matter and reserved judgment on August 20. A decision has since been due.

In an affidavit, university’s registrar Padan Kumar Jena said that the decision to stop the courses and not to renew the MoUs were taken after receiving direction from the chancellor and governor’s office on April 10, 2014.

The order was to adhere to the notice issued by University Grants Commission (UGC) on August 23, 2013.

“No university, whether central, state, private or deemed, can offer its programmes through franchising arrangement with private coaching institutions even for the purpose of conducting courses through distance mode,” the UGC notification said.

In his affidavit, the registrar said Ravenshaw University had started teaching the second and third year students who had taken admission in the self-financing courses for the year 2012-13 and 2013-14.

“The National Assessment and Accreditation Council team will be visiting the university shortly and further continuation of public-private-partnership practice in any of the courses run by the university will bring negative grades to it and may cause disaffiliation from UGC. As a result, the university will suffer irreparable losses, which cannot be compensated by any means,” the registrar said.