THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Governor Arif Mohammed Khan has referred to Kerala University a complaint he received questioning authenticity and academic quality of a doctoral thesis submitted by education minister K T Jaleel to obtain his PhD in 2006.
The complaint submitted by Save University Campaign Committee in the first week of October claimed that “a doctoral thesis by one Shri Abdul Jaleel K T, submitted to the University of Kerala on May 20, 2005, for the award of PhD degree is of dubious academic merit”
“The poor literary ability, lack of comprehending capacity and the meagre logical thought process of the said researcher, on many instances, were so revealing that they prompted us to go through his thesis... The said PhD thesis is nothing but a disordered compendium of quotes from various sources with very little inferences by the researcher...Over-quoting and paraphrasing in a PhD thesis brings down the quality and merit of the theory/conclusion put forth by the researcher because it will question even the relevance of the study. This thesis, which contains 622 quotes, in 302 paragraphs without author’s interpretations/findings, breaks all academic limits and leads to plagiarism — a very serious academic offence. Quotations from various sources are put together without specific objectives, hence falling to convey anything as the researcher had not offered any opinion or comments to explain the significance of such quotes,” the complaint said.
The thesis of Jaleel titled “Variamkunnathu Kunjahammed Haji and Ali Musliar - their role in the Malabar Rebellion” was supposed to explore in-depth historical importance of the duo who have now been equally eulogised and demonised by different sections for their active role in the controversial Malabar (Moplah) rebellion in 1921.
However, it is learnt that the office of the governor referred the complaint to university vice-chancellor V P Mahadevan Pillai as the office failed to identify researcher Abdul Jaleel KT referred in the complaint as higher education minister K T Jaleel himself.
Referring such complaints to the university is a routine process.