12.1 Bare Act Provision
11. Authentication of orders and other instruments of the Commission.— All orders and decisions of the Commission shall be authenticated by the signature of the Chairman or any other member authorised by the Commission in this behalf, and all other instruments issued by the Commission shall be authenticated by the signature of the Secretary or any other officer of the Commission authorised in like manner in this behalf.
12.2 Explanation
Section 11 of the UGC Act provides that all orders and decisions of the Commission are to be authenticated by the signature of the Chairman.[1] It provides the legal protocol for authentication. In administrative law, authentication is the process of proving that a document is a genuine act of the body it claims to represent. This section ensures that every notification, grant, or directive issued by the UGC carries the weight of official legal authority.
The first part of the section deals with high-level policy matters of Orders and Decisions e.g., a decision to de-recognize a university or a new regulation. These must be signed by the Chairman or a Member specifically authorized by the Commission. This reflects the principle that executive decisions must be traceable to the political or statutory leadership of the body.
The second part deals with Instruments e.g., contracts, financial grants, employment letters, or routine correspondence, etc. These are authenticated by the Secretary or an Officer authorized in that behalf. This separates the deliberative leadership of Chairman or Members from the executive administration of Secretary or Staff, allowing the Commission to function without the Chairman needing to sign every routine letter.
Under the Indian Evidence Act, 1872, now relevant under the Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam, 2023, once a document is authenticated according to Section 11 of the UGC Act, the other person can presume it as a valid act of the Commission. If an order is signed by the Secretary but involves a high-level Decision, and the Secretary was not properly authorized for that specific category, the order can be challenged as lack of jurisdiction. If the substance of the decision is correct and was made by the right authority, a minor defect in the form of authentication i.e. the signature may not necessarily strike down the entire order.[2] However, in the case of the UGC, which deals with huge financial grants, the courts are stricter. An unauthenticated instrument involving money could be viewed as non-binding on the Commission.
12.3 Critical Analysis
Procedural Delay: The requirement for specific authorization can lead to signature bottlenecks. If the Chairman is unavailable and the Commission has not formally passed a resolution authorizing another member for a specific category of orders, critical policy documents can sit in limbo. While digital signatures are now legally valid under the Information Technology Act, 2000, the internal authorization process at the UGC remains largely manual and resolution-based, which can slow down the issuance of urgent directives to universities.
Constitutional Validity and Ultra Vires: Section 11 is a standard administrative provision and is constitutionally valid. It serves the Rule of Law by ensuring accountability. If the Secretary signs an Order, which belongs to the Chairman’s domain under the Act, without a clear authorization resolution, that act is ultra vires of Section 11. It prevents a bureaucratic takeover where the administrative staff might start making policy decisions without the involvement of the statutory Members.
Colonial Era Policy and Irrelevance: This section is a direct descendant of the Seal and Signature policies of the British Raj. The British administration was obsessed with the Proper Channel. Every document had to be authenticated to ensure it could be used as evidence in a court of law across the Empire. In a modern governance framework, the distinction between an Order and an Instrument is becoming blurred. Many modern statutes like those governing digital regulators, focus on Electronic Verification and Automated Approval rather than the physical signature of a specific high-ranking individual. Section 11’s rigid focus on specific persons rather than processes is seen as a 20th-century approach to a 21st-century administrative challenge.
Room for Misinterpretation: Section 11 ensures the document is genuine, but it does not ensure it is public. There is no requirement in Section 11 to publish these authenticated orders in a central digital registry immediately. This creates a situation where an authenticated order might exist but is not known to the students or faculty it affects until much later. The Central Information Commission (CIC) has frequently pulled up statutory bodies for not pro-actively disclosing authenticated orders on their websites, arguing that Section 11 authentication should be the start of the communication process, not the end.
[1] Jagdish Prasad Sharma vs State Of Bihar & Ors [AIRONLINE 2013 SC 138]
[2] State of Bombay v. Purushottam Jog Naik [1952 AIR 317]
