All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) has issued a new notification about the BTech degrees awarded by the Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU). The notification has been issued regarding the clarification of the inquiries related to the validity of the BTech degree offered by IGNOU.
As per the announcement AICTE has stated that it has no objection to the degree awarded to candidates enrolled up to the academic session 2011-12.
As IGNOU used to conduct BTech courses through ODL(Online Distance Learning) mode. This led to litigation as engineering cannot be offered in distance mode. In 2018, the Supreme Court approved the degrees awarded by IGNOU for students enrolled till 2009-10 and later extended that relief to students who enrolled till 2011-12. AICTE also approved the degrees awarded to students who have enrolled till 2011-12.
However, the university has stooped offering BTech in distance mode after that. As per the notification the circular reads, “AICTE has no objection for B.Tech. Degree/Diploma in Engineering awarded by IGNOU to the students who were enrolled up to the academic year 2011-12 with IGNOU as per Supreme Court Judgement and hence are treated as valid as a special case but cannot be taken as precedence and not for post-2012.” (AIR NEWS)