Governor H.R. Bhardwaj has cleared all private university Bills that were awaiting his assent.
Sources in Raj Bhavan told The Hindu that there were no Bills proposing the establishment of private universities now pending with the Governor.
13 Bills
Initially, 13 Bills were sent to the Raj Bhavan.
Eight Bills, Reva University, Vellore Institute of Technology, Dayananda Sagar University, Adichunchanagiri University, PES University, M.S. Ramaiah Applied Sciences University, Sharana Basava University and Amrutha Sinchana Spiritual University, were cleared early this year.
The Acts were gazetted on February 7.
Five Bills, Manipal University, Arka University, Devaraj Urs University, Roy Technical University and KLE Technological University, and four other Bills that were passed on the last day of the budget session on February 16 (Vydehi University, Garden City University, JSS Science and Technology University and Srinivasa University), were pending approval.
Bills pending
Interestingly, several important Bills, including the one pertaining to the division of Bangalore University, are still under examination.
The controversial Karnataka State Universities (Second Amendment) Bill, 2013, as well as the Visvesvaraya Technological University (Amendment) Bill, 2013, both of which are said to dilute the powers of the Chancellor, are also yet to get past this stage.
Meanwhile, there have been protests by various student organisations and other stakeholders against the establishment of such large number of private universities in the State.
