CHENNAI: Criticising the authorities of University of Madras (UoM) for falsely denying the receipt of the original academic certificates of a retired professor, who had submitted them for an award, the Madras High Court set an eight-week ultimatum for the varsity to retrieve the certificates.If the respondents - the Registrar and HoD of Biochemistry department - fail to give them back, the varsity should pay Rs 10 lakh compensation, the court said.
The judge further said if the documents could not be retrieved, the V-C should initiate appropriate enquiry led by independent persons, not below the rank of a varsity HoD, and fix the persons who are responsible for the loss of the original documents; and recover the compensation amount from them. The petitioner is also entitled for Rs 10,000 towards costs incurred and it should be paid by the registrar, the order said.
The case pertains to submission of original academic certificates along with an application by Dr S Subramanian, former professor of Bio Chemistry department at UoM, for the TN Senior Scientist Award, 2016. He submitted the documents and application on December 23, 2017.However, the university authorities did not forward his application to the Science City for processing. Knowing this, after the award was announced, he urged the authorities to return his certificates but it was not done.Further, the authorities denied submission of original academic documents.