The doctoral thesis submitted by Higher Education Minister K.T. Jaleel to the University of Kerala in May 2005 came under scrutiny on Monday after Governor Arif Mohammed Khan took cognizance of a complaint that raised allegations of irregularities in the award of doctoral degree.
Considering a petition submitted by the Save University Campaign Committee, a collective of education activists and academics, which demanded a revaluation of Dr. Jaleel’s thesis on ‘Kunhahammed Haji and Ali Musliar — Their Role in the Malabar Rebellion,’ the Governor directed the Vice Chancellor to consider the plaint and furnish a response on the issue.
Raising serious allegations against the university, the petition also portrayed the thesis in bad light by flagging “the poor literary ability, lack of comprehending capacity and a meagre logical thought process” of Dr. Jaleel, who was then a senior- scale lecturer at the PSMO College, Tirurangady.
Pointing out several errors that crept into the research thesis, the Save University Campaign Committee also accused the researcher of approaching the topic with bias by purportedly failing to highlight the “unfortunate fallout of the Mappila Rebellion.” The complainants claimed that the researcher had registered for research in the university in the year 2000 when B. Ekbal was the Vice Chancellor and had re-registered in 2005 when M.K. Ramachandran was at its helm.
“The registration with a vague and irrelevant academic objective would have got cancelled had it not been revived for other reasons by the then Vice Chancellor (sic),” the petition read. The committee called for a revaluation of the doctoral thesis by a team of expert academics.
