Indore: In an unexplainable move, Devi Ahilya Vishwavidyalaya (DAVV) shattered dreams of many PhD aspirants belonging to reserved category by depriving them of their right to five percent relaxation in marks for admission in prestigious course.
Overlooking norms, the university prepared and subsequently declared results of doctoral entrance test (DET) without giving mandatory relaxation to reserved category candidates. It went ahead and conducted interviews for candidates declared them successful in examination and enrolled them in PhD programme.
Now, the university will have to undo all that. It will have to cancel the admissions, nullify interviews and withdraw results so that entire process can be done again as per the norms. DET was conducted for admission on 709 seats in PhD programme on May 14 and results were declared on June 1. Candidates who got 50 percent marks or above were declared qualified in the examination.
As per Ordinance of PhD, relaxation of five percent in qualifying marks was to be given to SC, ST and OBC candidates. In other words, the minimum qualifying marks for quota students should have been 45. But university overlooked the clause and declared results with 50 percent marks.
On going through PhD Ordinance, Free Press learnt about the goof-up and informed university authorities about it on Sunday. “We admit that blunder has been committed in PhD admission process. But we will fix it. No deserving candidate will suffer,” said Prof VB Gupta, chairman, PhD cell at DAVV.
How blunder took place?
All the courses offered by the universities are run on basis of Ordinances, which are passed by coordination committee – apex body of higher education in the state. DAVV had prepared draft of PhD Ordinance (Ordinance No 11) and sent to the coordination committee for approval. The draft had no provision for relaxation in marks for reserved category students. But coordination committee amended the draft and added clause of relaxation. The DAVV authorities did not check approved ordinance and conducted exam as per provisions in draft, which led to blunder.
264 students with 45 to 49 marks
In all, 383 candidates scoring 50 or above marks were declared successful in DET taken by 2,705 candidates. A closer look at DET results sheet revealed that 264 candidates got 45 to 49 marks. It was not known how many of them were from reserved categories but when relaxation will be implemented many of them will be declared successful in DET.
Options with DAVV
Experts say there are two options with the DAVV. First, it should cancel the entire admission process, barring the entrance exam, and re-do it with making required correction in results. Second is that it should declare supplementary results with giving five percent relaxation in DET marks to SC, SC and OBC candidates. The problem with the second option is that university has already conducted interviews for 31 out of 42 courses.