Which committee suggested the transfer of university and higher education from…

Concept — Under the Seventh Schedule of the Constitution, legislative subjects are distributed across three lists. A subject in the State List is ordinarily for the state legislatures alone, Parliament reaching it only in the special situations the Constitution itself provides for; a subject in the Concurrent List may be legislated on by both Parliament and the state legislatures, and where the two laws are repugnant the central law ordinarily prevails, a State law reserved for and receiving the President's assent being the recognised exception. Shifting a subject from one list to the other therefore transfers law-making power and requires a constitutional amendment.

Application — Education stood in the State List when the Constitution came into force — Entry 11 of that list, expressly made subject to Union List Entries 63 to 66, which reserved to the Centre the specified institutions of national importance, scientific and technical education, professional and technical training, and the coordination and determination of standards in institutions of higher education. The Committee of Members of Parliament on Higher Education, chaired by P.N. Sapru, was constituted in 1963 and reported in 1964; it recommended that university and higher education be transferred from the State List to the Concurrent List, the Union List entries, Entry 66 in particular, staying with the Centre. The answer is therefore the P.N. Sapru Committee.

Cross-check — the three other bodies named here worked on entirely different terms of reference:

• A.R. Wadia Committee (University Grants Commission, 1963) — examined the introduction of Education as an elective subject at the undergraduate stage.

• M. Bhaktavatsalam Committee (1963) — reported on women's education, in particular the weak public support for girls' schooling in rural areas.

• D.S. Kothari Committee, that is the Education Commission (1964-66) — a comprehensive review of national educational development; its majority in fact declined to recommend moving education to the Concurrent List, only a minority favouring the change.

Result — The Sapru Committee's recommendation was carried further by the Constitution (Forty-second Amendment) Act, 1976, which deleted Education from the State List and recast Entry 25 of the Concurrent List to cover Education, including technical education, medical education and universities, subject to Union List Entries 63 to 66, along with the vocational and technical training of labour.