In a first, Rs 4L penalty on Bengaluru's St Joseph's varsity

Bengaluru: The state government has slapped a penalty of Rs 4 lakh on St Joseph’s University for violating norms on admissions, enhancement of seats and introducing new courses without the government’s approval in the last two years. It is for the first time the government has imposed a penalty on a private university in the state.

Based on a report submitted by an expert committee constituted by the Karnataka State Higher Education Council, the department of Higher Education has issued an order imposing the penalty.

When contacted, the registrar of the university Dr Melwin Colaco said the university has not received an official communication from the government about the penalty.

The committee had recommended a hefty amount as penalty after finding that the university filled up over 500 seats and also introduced over 20 new undergraduate courses without the government’s approval, which includes B.Sc (Chemistry, Microbiology, Biology) and BA (Journalism, Economics, Psychology). The violation reported was during 2023-24 and 2024-25 academic years.

Among the violations include enhancing seats for the most sought after courses like B.Com and BBA from 120 to 510 and 200 to 304, respectively. Even seats for BCA were enhanced from 66 to 184.

According to norms, private universities must seek the government’s approval for enhancing seats or introducing new courses.

“In general, private universities are inspected once in three years. But if they want to increase their seats or introduce new courses, they must apply for permission. Following the application, the Higher Education Council will constitute an expert committee, which will in turn visit the university and submit a report,” explained a senior official of the Higher Education Council.

However, in St Joseph’s case, though the periodic inspection is due in September 2025, the committee was constituted as the university had applied for permission to commence a few new programmes, including PhD for the 2025-26 academic year. The violations came to light during the committee’s visit.

“The committee was shocked to find the violations and submitted a detailed report to the government recommending a hefty penalty and even denied permission for PhD, M.Sc and other new programmes,” said the official.

Documents accessed by DH show that the committee had highlighted the lack of infrastructure. It also said that running the university in three shifts is an indication of a infrastructure shortage and violation of University Grants Commission (UGC) norms.

The committee also recommended reduction of intake equal to the excess admissions made for the next two years besides barring sanction to any new programmes.

The university houses over 10,000 students. “According to the act, they must share 60% of the seats with the government, which was also not followed,” the official mentioned.

Confirming this to DH, Higher Education Minister Dr M C Sudhakar said that in the interest of students, the government agreed to regularise the seats and courses. “Considering the interest of the students who have already been admitted, we regularised the seats but imposed a penalty of Rs 4 lakh,” Dr Sudhakar confirmed.

Meanwhile, Sudhakar said that if the department receives any specific complaints against any private university violating the Act or norms, then an inspection will be done.