The All India Council for Technical Education is a national level council and is the statutory body for technical education, under Department of Higher Education and Ministry of Human Resource Development. The AICTE is established in the year 1945 as an advisory body and was given statutory status in 1987 by an Act of Parliament.
The AICTE takes the responsibility for coordinated development and planning of the management education system and technical education in India. The AICTE certifies graduate and postgraduate programs under individual categories at various Indian institutions as per its authorization. It is vested with statutory authority for the formulation, planning, maintenance of norms and standards, funding in priority areas, quality assurance, maintaining parity of awards and certifications, monitoring and evaluation as a part of AICTE Act No. 60 of 2004.
The headquarters of AICTE is situated in New Delhi and has its branches in Kolkata, Thiruvananthapuram, Kanpur, Chennai, Baroda, Mumbai Chandigarh, Bhopal, Guwahati, Hyderabad, Bangalore, and Gurgaon.
In 2013 Supreme Court has given a judgment that the council has no right to enforce or issue any sanctions on colleges that are affiliated with various universities as the AICTEs role is to provide necessary guidance and recommendations. Later on, Supreme Court has requested AICTE to regulate technical colleges till January 2016.