HYDERABAD: The Telangana High Court upheld a single judge’s order and directed Kakatiya University to allow a petitioner to pursue a Ph.D. program under Category-I against a 25% quota for government college lecturers and employees in the faculty of Arts for the academic year 2021-22.
Chief Justice Ujjal Bhuyan and Justice N. Tukaramji heard the writ appeal filed by Kakatiya University’s Vice-Chancellor, Registrar, and Dean of the Faculty of Arts. The court dismissed the writ appeal and criticised the university’s approach, stating that irrational technicalities should not impede research.
Kakatiya University had issued a notification inviting applications for admission to the Ph.D. program in the faculty of Arts under Category-I for the 2021-2022 academic year. Jala Sri Lakshmi, a degree lecturer in English who met the prerequisites for admission, applied for the program. The university shortlisted her name and provisionally selected her, after which she paid the required fee and attended the admission committee for certificate verification and finalisation of admission.
However, the university denied her admission on the grounds that she was employed by Telangana Social Welfare Residential Educational Institutions Society, despite being a government employee who had obtained a no objection certificate from her employer for pursuing the PhD. course on a part-time basis. Sri Lakshmi then filed a writ petition, and a single judge determined that she was eligible for the program.