• The High Court of Karnataka has set aside the Union government’s order transferring the city-based Rajarajeswari Medical College and Hospital (RRMCH) to the Dr. MGR Educational and Research Institute, a Chennai-based deemed-to-be university.
• The court has also directed the Centre to restore the medical college to Rajiv Gandhi University of Health Sciences (RGUHS), Bengaluru.
• Justice Krishna S. Dixit passed the order while allowing a petition filed by the State government challenging the February 14, 2019 notification issued by the Centre including RRMCH under the Chennai-based deemed university on the recommendations made by the University Grants Commission (UGC).
• The court also dismissed a petition filed by the city-based Moogambigai Charitable and Educational Trust, which was managing RRMCH, challenging the May 16, 2019 order of the State government and the June 29 decision of RGUHS of not allowing disaffiliation from the State health university.
• Though the court held that the deemed university could not have admitted students to undergraduate and postgraduate courses without securing disaffiliation from RGUHS, it asked the State and RGUHS to protect the students admitted by the deemed-to-be university as the students were not at fault.
• The court held that the UGC could not have recommended to the Centre to include the college under the deemed university without considering the objections of the State government, whose opinion was sought as per the regulations.
• The State government had categorically objected to the inclusion of RRMCH under the Chennai-based deemed-to-be university while pointing out that the college was recognised as a Tamil linguistic minority institution to serve Tamil minority candidates in Karnataka.
• Noting that the UGC regulations allowed for the inclusion of institutions under the same management into a deemed-to-be university, the court said that RRMCH was managed by Moogambigai Trust, Bengaluru, while the deemed-to-be university was managed by the Dr. MGR Educational and Research Institute Trust, Chennai, even though the two had some common trustees.