Did Madras University overlook lapses in PhD admission to staff?

There seem to be no end to controversies in the University of Madras. The administration of the university is now under fire for overlooking serious lapses in the admission of a library staff to a PhD programme without the concurrence of the academic department concerned.

Repeated flagging of the issue by senior professors, sources claim, have yielded no results and the synopsis submitted by the candidate has been accepted without going into accusation of guidelines violation.

The matter pertains to one S Perumal, a staff of the university library. In 2009, Perumal had allegedly applied for admission to a doctoral programme in Library and Information Science (LIS). While there is a dedicated academic teaching department with a head for this subject, Perumal’s application, senior professors claim, was routed through the library of the university. Curiously, the guide of Perumal for the programme is K Kaliyaperumal, who is now the librarian in-charge.

According to sources, the admission committee that went into Perumal’s application did not have the HoD of LIS as a member, which is mandatory as per statutes.  When the recommendation for admission of the candidate was made, a note sent to the department in March 2010 raised questions on why it was not forwarded through the HoD.

This issue was then taken up with the Board of Research Studies (BoRS) and the varsity Syndicate, which ruled that all applications for doctoral programmes in library science have to go through the department.

But, even after the decision, the administration allegedly failed to act on Perumal’s candidature.

A Syndicate member said a doctoral committee to scrutinise the synopsis of Perumal’s thesis was then formed without having the HoD of the department as member, which was again mandatory.

Documents accessed by Express from the registrar’s office reveal the department had clearly stated that Perumal had neither submitted his application nor had joined the department as a part-time PhD candidate. There was no record of his registration nor of any transaction, including fee payment. Hence, an inquiry was deemed necessary.

“In all other subjects, the fee payment is made through the department only because it has to be audited. How can this case alone be different? Even during the former librarian’s tenure, candidates were processed only through the department and not the library,” said a former senior Senate member.

When contacted, Kaliyaperumal said all norms had been followed in the instance, “The library is a teaching department according to UGC norms. The resolution was passed after the admission of the candidate and so it is not applicable to this case. All rules have been duly followed,” he said.

Source:Indian Express