Mizoram set to legitimise ICFAI varsity - Govt to move bill

Aizawl, July 10: The Mizoram government is going ahead with plans to legitimise the establishment of the Institute of Chartered Financial Analysts of India (ICFAI) University in the state.

Sources said the state would not scrap its plan to set up the university despite misgivings resulting from ICFAI?s ignominious removal from Chhattisgarh through a Supreme Court order earlier this year.

?The department concerned is preparing a bill to legislate ICFAI university and is quite in a hurry so as to be able to present it to the next legislative Assembly sitting, which in all probability will be held in September,? a state government official said on condition of anonymity.

On February 11 this year, the Supreme Court had quashed the Chhattisgarh Private University Act 2002 following the filing of a public interest litigation by former University Grants Commission (UGC) chairman Professor Yashpal.

Consequently, 97 private universities in Chhattisgarh were declared unlawful and were de-notified. Second on the list of these private universities was ICFAI University.

In a statement published on its website, ICFAI says,?ICFAI University wishes to inform its students that the recent Supreme Court judgement, whereby the Supreme Court has quashed the Chhattisgarh Private Universities Act, is confined only to those universities which were established under Chhattisgarh Private Universities Act and not other Universities.

?ICFAI University has also been notified as a university through 3 separate and specific Acts, namely The ICFAI University Act 2003 (Uttaranchal), The Institute of Chartered Financial Analysts of India University Act 2004 (Tripura), The Institute of Chartered Financial Analysts of India University Act 2004 (Sikkim),? the ICFAI website says.

The website also categorically states, ?The ICFAI University represents the multi-state network of universities, sponsored by the Institute of Chartered Financial Analysts of India under specific University Acts, in Uttaranchal, Tripura, Sikkim, Meghalaya and Mizoram.?

Meghalaya and Mizoram are yet to legislate acts to bring ICFAI University to the two states. Although state government officials in Mizoram said an ordinance had been signed by the governor, no such ordinance had been made public.

An official of the government of Mizoram said higher authorities may have brushed aside legal advice on the need for ICFAI to obtain a no objection certificate from the UGC.

UGC officials said degrees conferred by private universities would become meaningless without a no objection certificate. Despite several misgivings and the fact that ICFAI had taken advantage of the lax Chhattisgarh Private University Act, the state government is going ahead with formulating a bill to legitimise the setting up the university.