New Delhi: A meeting of the Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) on the Viksit Bharat Shiksha Adhishthan Bill, 2025 scheduled for Monday (July 20) in which the panel was to adopt its draft report ahead of it being tabled in parliament in the monsoon session has been cancelled, The Wire has learnt.The development comes a day after the JPC studying another contentious proposed legislation on the removal of the prime minister, chief minister and ministers arrested under serious criminal charges for 30 days said that it will not be submitting its report in the upcoming monsoon session.The Viksit Bharat Shiksha Adhishthan Bill, 2025 was a part of the tentative list of government business released on Thursday. The developments on both the contentious legislations come amid speculation that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led Union government is looking to shore up its numbers to reintroduce its delimitation Bill after its Lok Sabha expansion-linked women’s reservation legislation was defeated in the Lok Sabha by a united opposition in April.A notice from the Lok Sabha secretariat seen by The Wire states that the sitting of the JPC on the Viksit Bharat Shiksha Adhishthan Bill, 2025 scheduled for 10 am on Monday for the consideration and adoption of its draft report has been cancelled. The notice further states that the next sitting of the meeting will be intimated in due course.Congress MP Jairam Ramesh said the developments are a result of the government’s delimitation Bill suffering a defeat in the Lok Sabha at the opposition’s hands three months ago. “The humiliation suffered by the Modi Govt in the Lok Sabha on April 17, 2026 clearly has cast a long shadow that persists inspite of the Union Home Minister’s bluff, brag, and bluster,” he wrote on X.The Viksit Bharat Shiksha Adhishthan Bill seeks to overhaul India’s higher education framework by dismantling the University Grants Commission, the All India Council for Technical Education and the National Council for Teacher Education and replacing them with a single apex regulatory body named the Viksit Bharat Shiksha Adhishthan. The JPC is chaired by BJP MP D. Purandeswari.The bill has faced opposition within the committee from the BJP’s NDA allies, including the Telugu Desam Party (TDP), which had flagged that several provisions of the legislation could render the state’s legislative authority over high education effectively meaningless. Madhya Pradesh, another BJP-ruled state, had also raised concerns. Institutions including Banaras Hindu University, the Central University of Rajasthan, Indian Institute of Information Technology Chittoor and multiple state universities across Assam, Maharashtra and Jammu and Kashmir also condemned the Bill’s centralising clauses.During the JPC’s deliberations, the Bill also faced objections from opposition members who raised objections that the legislation provides for over-centralisation and goes beyond constitutional parameters.The Wire has learnt that members of the Trinamool Congress (TMC) pushed back strongly and expressed concerns that the proposed legislation exceeds constitutional parameters, makes higher education the preserve of the rich, attacks federalism and creates a massive centralised structure.TMC MPs also said it destroys academic freedom and includes a narrow interpretation of ‘Bharatiya knowledge systems’ based on only one religion and includes arbitrariness on accreditation.Earlier The Hindu had reported that the Congress’s Digvijay Singh, who is also a member of the panel, had alleged that it includes “constitutional overreach” into subjects that fall under the state list.The Bill had also faced criticism from opposition members at its introduction stage. Opposition MPs had accused the Union government of over-centralising education through the proposed legislation – which was also criticised for its Hindi nomenclature – following which the Bill was ultimately sent to a JPC.