UGC

The 2012 regulations did not limit the definition of discrimination to select caste groups only. However, the 2026 UGC guidelines explicitly left out General Category students. 'Caste-based discrimination' in the new regulation was defined as discrimination only on the basis of caste or tribe against the members of the scheduled castes, scheduled tribes, and other backward classes.

Soon after filing the petition, Dewan spoke to OpIndia, explaining his concerns and the motivation behind moving the Supreme Court.

A headline-grabbing 118.4% rise, when stripped of institutional scale and context, turns limited data into a manufactured crisis to justify regulatory overreach.

Unhappy with the 2025 regulations, Senior Advocate Indira Jaising proposed ten core reforms in the regulations, which made way into the final draft.

What the UGC has proposed is not a modest reform but a sweeping bureaucratic architecture that closely resembles Western DEI frameworks, models that promised inclusion but instead delivered polarisation, litigation, and institutional paralysis. India is at risk of importing a failed ideological export at precisely the wrong moment.

The structural design of the UGC Promotion of Equity Regulations, 2026, raises serious concerns about procedural balance and institutional fairness. The framework prioritises speed, perception, and compliance, but leaves critical gaps in safeguards, clarity, and due process, thereby furthering dangerous stereotypes, assuming guilt, and demonising those belonging to the general category, while disregarding false complaints and their impact on the lives of innocent students.