A section of students are reportedly exploring legal options to overcome what they termed the delay in admissions to PhD courses at the University of Calicut.
The students claim that though the public notification for admissions for 2021-22 was issued in April last year, the process began only in February this year. It has been reported that many vacancies arose in between this period. There are allegations that applications from affiliated colleges were not being approved in time.
K.P. Lijith Chandran, an activist of the Kerala Students’ Union, is one of those who had earlier filed a case in the High Court against the university, accusing it of denying him PhD admission in the Department of Life Sciences in violation of reservation rules. He alleged that the university was slowing down the process now as the court order might be favourable to him. Mr. Chandran said that many students who wanted to join the course were in the dark because of this. “I will apprise the honourable court about the current situation,” he added.
According to a letter to the Vice Chancellor by P. Rasheed Ahammed, Syndicate member, the university has notified around 1,000 research vacancies in various disciplines. Fifty per cent of these belong to the reserved categories.
A total of 22.5% is for the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, 8% for Ezhava, Thiyya, Billava, 7% for Muslims and the rest is for other communities. He alleged that this reservation pattern is not followed in the admission process, which was a serious issue. Mr. Ahammed said that if the reservation pattern is followed properly, SCs and STs would get 205 seats, Ezhavas, Thiyyas and Billavas 73 seats, Muslims 64 and other categories 114.
He claimed that though the university Syndicate during its meeting on June 22, 2021, had set up a sub-committee to prepare the modalities for the PhD admission process, it had not submitted its report as yet. Mr. Ahammed alleged that the Directorate of Admissions and the Directorate of Research are blaming each other for the situation.
K.D. Bahuleyan, who is heading the Syndicate sub-committee, however, told The Hindu on Tuesday that the committee’s findings would not have any bearing on the ongoing admissions to PhD courses. The existing system would continue. The report would be submitted before starting next year’s admissions, he added. The Directorate of Research said in a press release recently that the admissions were possible only to publicly notified vacancies as per law. Applications for approving new research centres in affiliated colleges were being examined now. Nobody is being denied admissions, it added.
