The University of Calicut has dismissed K. Haris, Assistant Professor, Department of English, from service after he was found guilty of misbehaving with a girl student.
This was decided at a Syndicate meeting held on Wednesday. The Syndicate had on January 29 approved the findings of an internal inquiry committee that found Mr. Haris guilty of committing sexual assault. Mr. Haris had been suspended from service since July 2021. The suspension was based on a report of the internal cell which inquired into a complaint she had lodged with the head of the department and the Vice Chancellor. Mr. Haris allegedly sent explicit messages to her over phone and tried to grab her at a public place. He had joined the university only in early 2021.
Registration fee hiked
The Syndicate also decided to increase the online registration fee for admissions to undergraduate and postgraduate courses. The fee for the general category for UG and PG courses without entrance tests is ₹420. For those in the Scheduled Castes/Scheduled Tribes category, it will be ₹175. Similar is the structure for integrated PG courses without entrance tests.
The fee for the general category for UG and PG courses with entrance tests is ₹550. For the SC/ST category, it is ₹240. Similar is the fee structure for integrated PG courses with entrance tests. For MBA courses, the fee for the above-mentioned categories are ₹830 and ₹230, respectively. For B.Ed courses, they are ₹650 and ₹200, and M.Ed ₹750 and ₹350, respectively.
The university’s justification for fee hike is that it had not revised the fee on a par with other universities in the State in the past. Syndicate member P. Rasheed Ahammed expressed his dissent saying students would not be able to bear the burden of additional fees.
Registrar E.K. Sathish, who was asked to look into the losing of affiliation of Afzal-ul-Ulema courses in eight Arabic colleges in Malappuram district, told the Syndicate that they would not lose the permanent affiliation. If the university is found to have suffered any financial losses, it would be recovered from the officials.
The Vice Chancellor would examine the demand to postpone sixth semester undergraduate exams. Question bank would be prepared for UG exams from the next academic year. The Syndicate also approved a memorandum of understanding with the Malabar Cancer Centre, Thalassery, Kannur, and the Naval Institute of Educational and Training Technology, Kochi, for academic cooperation.
