The Sree Sankaracharya University of Sanskrit on Monday informed the Kerala High Court that K. Vidya, former leader of the Students’ Federation of India (SFI), who had allegedly forged fake experience certificates in the name of Maharaja’s College to secure employment, was given admission to the Ph.D programme during 2019-20 after following all the norms.
Justice Devan Ramachandran granted the university two weeks’ time to explain its stand when a petition filed by Varsha S. seeking a directive to the university to give her admission to the Ph.D programme under quota reserved for Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe students came up for hearing.
She also sought to quash the additional admission given to five candidates including Vidya. The petitioner alleged favouritism in the selection process. The university had notified 10 seats at first and later five seats had been additionally recommended by the chairman of the research committee of Malayalam department. No candidate from the SC/ST community was selected to the additional seats.
The university submitted that the reservation norms for SC/ST candidates in the Ph.D admission had been followed. Vidya and another candidate named Divya were admitted based on their representations and a High Court judgment. Two SC/ST candidates were admitted in 2019.
