A two-judge bench of Justices BS Chauhan and V Gopala Gowda on April 25 held that MBA programmes can’t be defined as technical programmes and the AICTE is not authorized to set standards as Parliament had already enacted UGC Act for the same.
“As per definition, we hold that MBA course is not a technical course within the definition of the AICTE Act. Therefore, the approval from the AICTE is not required for obtaining permission and running MBA course by the appellant colleges,” the bench said.
The order came on a number of appeals filed by Association of Management of Private Colleges along with some other colleges which defied the AICTE order directing them to seek prior approval for starting MBA pogrammes.
The MBA institutions argued that All India Council for Technical Education is wrongly interpreting its regulation which suggests that even though the University is not required to take permission from the All India Council for Technical Education (for short AICTE), its affiliated colleges are required to do so.
This regulation was added under the AICTE Act by way of an amendment in year 2000 which recognised both MBA and MCA courses to be "technical" courses. But, according to private colleges, AICTE has not placed its amended regulations seeking to make it mandatory for MBA colleges to get an AICTE approval, before parliament. Accepting the argument, the SC bench said that AICTE can’t force its standard on MBA programs affiliated to a university.
It is, however, not yet clear whether this judgement will influence the PGDM programmes run by private B-schools in India.
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