MADURAI: A three-member committee has been formed to probe six alleged irregularities in student enrolment for PhD courses at Madurai Kamaraj University.
The committee was formed after a senate meeting by the Commissioner of Collegiate Education and Chairperson of MKU’s Convener Committee (CC) E Sundaravalli. It comprises Convener Committee Member Prof. B Mayilvaganan and Syndicate Members Prof. Pushparaj and Prof. S Kannan.
Sources said that during the academic council and senate meeting, members raised allegations against the staff working in the research department, and also explained the practical difficulties in submitting the thesis in the research section.
Members had raised opposition against the five-member committee, stating that all five members are MKU professors and there were no syndicate members in the committee. A few research scholars submitted a letter to the chairperson and appealed to her to simplify the procedures in the research department.
Following this, the chairperson shuffled the staff in the research department, and suspended Research Department Superintendent Kuppusamy for allegedly collecting Rs 25,000-Rs 50,000 from each student for allotting additional marks through the 'normalization formula method' in Ph.D. entrance exams and during interviews.
Sundaravalli also appointed S Murugesan, Professor and Head, Department of Inorganic Chemistry, as the research department coordinator.
Earlier, a five-member committee led by Prof. D Ganesh, Chairperson, School of Biotechnology, was appointed in October to probe the irregularities in the entrance test for admission to PhD courses.