Govt asked to set up panel to fix parity in technical degrees

"We direct that a copy of this decision would be sent to the HRD Ministry secretary with a direction that the government would constitute a committee of experts in the field of technical education which would gather the course curriculum of all the technical (engineering) degrees recognised by the UGC and would accord equivalence...." said a bench of justices Pradeep Nandrajog and Manmohan Singh.

The court also directed the government to display the equivalent technical degrees on the websites of the University Grant Commission (UGC), the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) and the Human Resource Development (HRD) Ministry.

The court further directed the government to file a compliance report by April 9, next year.

"An affidavit would be filed by the HRD Ministry secretary disclosing the names of the members of the committee of experts and the task assigned to the committee..." it said.

The court was hearing a bunch of petitions from B Tech degree holders in various streams like Information Technology, Computer Science, Instrumentation and Control, Electronic and Instrumentation, and Electrical and Electronics engineering etc, seeking employment with Army against the vacancies advertised for B Techs in Electrical, Computer Science and Electronic and Instrumentation.

The applicants had come to the court saying that they were denied jobs by the Army despite their technical degrees being equivalent to the one required for the job. (More)