MP Tewari terms Centre’s move ‘unconstitutional’

Terming the Centre’s decision to overhaul the governance of Panjab University as “constitutionally untenable and historically flawed,” Chandigarh Congress MP and former Union Minister Manish Tewari has warned that the move “will not stand judicial scrutiny” and “amounts to trampling the federal scheme of the Constitution.”

Speaking exclusively to The Tribune, which first broke the story of the dramatic restructuring, Tewari on Monday declared that the Centre cannot invoke incidental powers under the Punjab Reorganisation Act, 1966 to amend a state law enacted in 1947.

Meanwhile, it is learnt that some former Senators are already preparing to approach court against the decision, while MP himself will raise the issue prominently in Parliament.

Tewari revealed that he had met then Vice-President and Panjab University Chancellor Jagdeep Dhankhar last October and advised him against any such proposal. “I had cautioned that this step would be unconstitutional and must not be pursued,” he said.

The Centre late last week notified sweeping changes -- abolishing elections for the Syndicate by converting it into a fully nominated body and reducing Senate strength from roughly 90 to 31 -- marking the first such restructuring since November 1, 1966.

Tewari, citing historical and constitutional foundations, stressed that PU was the legal successor of the institution originally established in Lahore in 1882. After Partition, he said, the Punjab Assembly passed the Panjab University Act, 1947 -- “a state enactment, not a Central law” -- to establish the university in East Punjab following the loss of Lahore to Pakistan. “The University’s character and governance flow from a state statute,” he emphasised.

He outlined how the Punjab Reorganisation Act, 1966, led to the trifurcation of the state and administrative redistribution, but asserted that Section 72 -- a transitional provision -- was meant only for temporary, incidental arrangements, not radical structural alterations decades later. “To use it 59 years later to rewrite the Senate and Syndicate is legally impermissible. It is a clear violation of federalism,” he said, calling it “a legal travesty, an overreach and an affront to the constitutional balance.”

The decision has sparked sharp criticism from alumni, professors, former Senators and political leaders across Punjab, Haryana and Chandigarh, who accuse the Centre of centralisation and undermining the university’s heritage of elected representation. Student organisations have also opposed the move.

The Centre has defended the overhaul, arguing that it will curb politics on campus, end factional elections, and ensure professional academic governance in a premier national institution. But Tewari countered that procedural legitimacy cannot be sacrificed for administrative convenience. “Reforms are a secondary debate. The primary issue is constitutional propriety,” he said. “India is not a unitary command — it is a Union of States. Federalism cannot be rewritten by executive fiat.”