A division bench of the Madras High Court has stayed the operation of the orders of a single judge, who held that the additional degree obtained by undergoing one- year course is not equivalent to three-year degree course.
A division bench comprising Justice Elipe Dharma Rao and Justice M Vijayaraghavan granted the injunction on Wednesday, while admitting a writ appeal from Premakumari of Ulundurpet and three others challenging the order dated August 14 last year of Justice V Ramasubramanian.
While passing orders on a batch of writ petitions, the single judge in August last year had concluded that the additional degree (dual degree) obtained by candidates after undergoing a course of duration of one year was not equivalent to a degree obtained after undergoing a course of duration of three years.
Appellants’ counsel G Sankaran submitted that the UGC regulations permitted ‘add-on-courses’ like additional degrees after a regular degree graduation. The UGC Regulations, 1985, relied on to pass the orders in the writ petitions, had been subsequently superseded by UGC Regulations of 2003. As Per UGC Regulations, a person qualified with additional degree in a subject was eligible for admission to Master Degree, Sankaran contended.