NEW DELHI: The Delhi High Court has ordered that the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) cannot cancel the PhD of a candidate citing "there is no supervisor available for supervisions" and cannot ask one to "find himself a superviser".
Justice C Hari Shankar noted that the university's direction to a candidate to find himself a supervisor and obtain consent from him or her to supervise, "was in the teeth of Ordinance 6.1 and is, consequently, illegal."
As per the case, Nazar Mohammad Mohaideen S was a PhD scholar at JNU’s Special Centre for Molecular Medicine (SCMM). However, his supervisor, Professor Shailja Singh refused to run Mohaideen’s PhD, citing he was insincere in performing his assignments and was visiting the lab at late hours with strangers, which was a security threat.
Later, the university informed Mohaideen that since there is no other person available to supervise him, he cannot continue as a scholar at the SCMM.
He was approaching the high court following the letter from the university.
While allowing his plea, the court also said "the relief granted.. strictly conditional to the petitioner conducting himself in accordance with the discipline of the JNU, and not providing any legitimate ground for complaint by the newly appointed supervisor."
"Any such conduct or behaviour on the petitioner’s part – provided, of course, that it is proved by cogent material – would result, ipso facto,
in vacation of the relief granted by this judgement, and would revive the impugned order dated 4 October 2023," it was stated.
The court noted that the petitioner has also agreed to be supervised by Prof. Shailja Singh herself and undertakes to ensure that there would be no cause for any grievance to be raised by her in the future so far as the conduct of the petitioner is concerned.