"Hope We Don't Segregate Schools Like US": Supreme Court's Top Quotes On UGC Rules

The Supreme Court on Thursday paused the University Grants Commission's (UGC) new rules after various pleas were filed contending that the Commission adopted a non-inclusionary definition of caste-based discrimination and excluded certain categories from institutional protection. A bench of Chief Justice Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi issued notices to the Centre and the UGC on the pleas challenging the regulation.

Then top court suggested that the regulations must be revisited by a high-level committee.

Here are Supreme Court's top quotes during the hearing:

1. The unity of India must be reflected in our educational institutions. In a country after 75 years, is all that we have achieved to become a classless society? Are we becoming a regressive society? We  can't go further backwards.
2. The worst thing which is happening with ragging is that children coming from the South or North East - they carry their culture and somebody who is alien to that starts commenting on them.
3. Then you have spoken about separate hostels. For god's sake! There are inter caste marriages also now in our society. And we have also been in hostels where we all stayed together. 
4. I hope we don't go to segregated schools like the US, where blacks and whites went to different schools.
5. This kind of situation can be exploited by mischievous elements.

New UGC rules

The new regulations mandating all higher education institutions to form "equity committees" to look into discrimination complaints and promote equity were notified on January 13. The University Grants Commission (Promotion of Equity in Higher Education Institutions) Regulations, 2026, mandated that these committees must include members of the Other Backward Classes (OBC), the Scheduled Castes (SC), the Scheduled Tribes (ST), persons with disabilities, and women.

The regulations followed directions from the Supreme Court, which had asked the UGC to submit updated rules while hearing a petition - filed by the mothers of Rohith Vemula and Payal Tadvi -related to the implementation of the 2012 UGC anti-discrimination regulations. Vemula, a PhD scholar at the University of Hyderabad, died by suicide in 2016, allegedly after facing caste-based harassment. In 2019, Tadvi, a resident doctor at Mumbai's Topiwala National Medical College and BYL Nair Hospital, also died by suicide, with allegations of casteist harassment by seniors.

The new regulations replaced the UGC (Promotion of Equity in Higher Educational Institutions) Regulations, 2012, which were largely advisory in nature.

However, critics warned that under this new rule, students of the general category have been labelled as 'criminals'. They said that by limiting the scope of "caste-based discrimination" only to SC, ST and OBC categories, the UGC has effectively denied institutional protection and grievance redressal to individuals belonging to the "general" or non-reserved categories who may also face harassment or bias based on their caste identity.