AHMEDABAD: Gujarat high court has granted more time to the Centre for Environment Planning and Technology (CEPT) University to reply as to why it had decided to shelve the master's programme on the subject of climate change.

[The Petitoner] argued that the university did not follow the suggestion made by a committee and ignored the recommendation of the dean, Dr Shravan Kumar Acharya.

Their PIL maintained that the executive council of the university had met on October 25, 2012 and decided to discontinue this course. This course was launched in 2010. The petitioner came to know about this and sought information from the university but the authority did not provide any explanation. Finally, Shastri obtained the information through an RTI application.

The details revealed that the dean had written a four-page mail to the university, saying that this course on climate change was a unique one and it is not available in the western zone of the country. Hence, it should not be discontinued. The petitioner also came to know that a committee had recommended that this course be merged with another course (Sustainable Architecture & Environment Planning) but this suggestion was also ignored.

The petitioner claimed that the batch of 22 students of this course was shifted to the Planning & Public Policy course that has nothing to do with the issue of climate change.

On 04-Jul-2014, at 13:23, Architexturez Imprints <[email protected]> wrote:

Ahmedabad: The Gujarat High Court on Thursday issued a notice to the Centre for Environment Planning and Technology (CEPT) University on a PIL challenging the city- based institute's decision to discontinue a course on climate change.

The two-judge bench comprising Chief Justice Bhaskar Bhattacharya and Justice JB Pardiwala sought CEPT's response about discontinuing the course on 'Climate Change and Environment Sustainability'.

The PIL, filed by a CEPT alumnus Chirag Shastri, submitted that the "vital course" was discontinued without any prior information.

Advocate Daxesh Raval for the petitioner contended before the High Court that CPET's executive council discontinued the course overruling Dean Shravan Kumar's recommendation to continue with it.

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The petitioner submitted that there are no specific courses on climate change and therefore CEPT's decision is improper.