The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : Notice issued on writ petition

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, May 31, 2006

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Notice issued on writ petition

Special Correspondent

CHENNAI: The Madras High Court has ordered notice to the University of Madras on a writ petition alleging bias in the admission of scholars to a Ph.D. programme, and has directed the university to keep a Ph.D. seat vacant in the Indian History Department.

Vacation judge Justice Prafulla Kumar Misra gave the interim direction on a petition filed by a Scheduled Caste student, M. Kumaraswamy. He contended that the Head of the Department of Indian History in the university had been refusing admission to him in spite of the fact that he had completed M.Phil and had four years of teaching experience . He had also passed the National Eligibility Test for lectureship conducted by the UGC.

According to Mr. Kumaraswamy, he was not given admission since 1999 on the ground that there was no vacancy. However, in December 2005, S. Kuppusamy, came forward to be his research supervisor. In spite of that, he was not encouraged to join the programme, he said, adding that though SC candidates were not required to write any entrance examination for the Ph.D. programme as per UGC guidelines he was asked to sit for an entrance test by the Head of the Department. The test, however, was cancelled first, and then conducted at short notice. In the end, he was not selected.

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