A report by the SC/ST cell of the Sree Sankaracharya University of Sanskrit, Kerala reveals a discrepancy in the admissions in the university's Malayalam department. It states that the university has disobeyed the reservation norms and has illegally admitted two PhD candidates.
"On December 16, 2019, 10 PhD candidates were admitted. On top of that, five other candidates were also chosen by the research committee," reads the report. Now, in such a scenario, the fifth candidate must belong to the SC/ST category. However, the fifth additional candidate here comes from the unreserved category, according to the report.
"The fifth candidate, Vidya K, was the university entrance topper. During that time, there were allegations saying that there was a biased evaluation. She hasn't qualified the JRF," says Dinu K, another research scholar in the university. "However, when Vidya's name wasn't there in the initial list, she approached the High Court and the court had ordered the university to examine the complaint. Later, she was admitted, completely violating the reservation norms," he says.
Ambedkar Study Circle, a students' organisation also alleged foul play here. "Vidya has snatched a seat that belongs to a student from the SC/ST category. This is unjust," reads a note that it had issued. "We'd alerted the Vice-Chancellor about this, but no action was taken," it reads. The university's Vice-Chancellor, however, denies all the claims and said that no norm was violated. "We took all aspects of admission into consideration. She was given the admission only on the basis of the High Court's order," he said. The court order asks the university to 'work out remedies in accordance with law'.
We reached out to Vidya, seeking comment on the same. She said, "I scored the highest mark in the entrance examination. When admission was denied to me, I had approached the High Court. The court had ruled in my favour and I got the admission," she says. "A few people have been using this issue to target me personally and politically," says Vidya, who adds that she was the 14th candidate to get admitted. However, a list that Edexlive has accessed says that Vidya is the 15th candidate.
The university has been asked to admit an additional PhD candidate in its Malayalam department and prepare an admission list based on the candidates' marks. "We will soon admit a sixteenth candidate in the Malayalam department," says Sunil P Ilayidom, Dean, Faculty of Languages. "The university had admitted three additional JRF candidates and two more later, based on the High Court's order. We will now admit a student from the SC/ST category," he adds.
