The Supreme Court struck down on Thursday the Khalsa University (Repeal) Act, 2017 as “unconstitutional“, saying the law singled out the university from 16 private varsities in Punjab.
A bench of Justices B R Gavai and K V Viswanathan said, “No reasonable classification has been pointed out to discriminate Khalsa University against other private universities. The impugned act, therefore, would be discriminatory and violative of Article 14 of the Constitution.”
Khalsa University was established by the then SAD-BJP government in 2016, but when Captain Amarinder Singh government took over in 2017 it promulgated an ordinance repealing the 2016 Act and thereafter Punjab’s Vidhan Sabha passed the Khalsa University (Repeal) Act, 2017.
SC delivered its verdict on an appeal filed by Khalsa University and Khalsa College Charitable Society (KCCS), Amritsar, challenging the Nov 1, 2017 judgment of Punjab and Haryana HC that had dismissed a petition seeking quashing of the Act. Referring to several previous judgments of SC, the bench quashed the HC verdict, saying, “There should be a reasonable differentia on the basis of which a person, entity or undertaking is sought to be singled out from the rest of the group.”
(With inputs from PTI)
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