Row over recruitment of assistant professor at Cochin University of Science and Technology

Kochi: A controversy is swirling over the recruitment process of an assistant professor in molecular biology in the Biotechnology Department at Cochin University of Science and Technology (Cusat) amidst allegations of favouritism.  

The prime allegation is that the office staff of the university awarded marks to a candidate during the recruitment process but was given the boot by the interview committee led by the Vice-Chancellor.

This allegedly happened defeating the attempt at recruiting a relative of a staff at the university. There is another allegation that the selected candidate does not possess a doctorate recognized by Cusat.

“Such instances happen and we could identify that it was a famous university and the person has been asked to present the credentials of the university and a meeting of the university deans will be held on Thursday to consider it and only if they recognize it, his appointment will be made to the post,” said Vice-Chancellor Dr J Letha. 

She said that the verification of the degree and research publications etc was done by the office staff and they just rate them as per the parameters and there was nothing wrong in the practice.

“They do not make any quality analysis and only follow the procedure,” she said.  There are allegations of discrepancies happening in the awarding of marks for areas like domain knowledge and teaching skill, where a uniform pattern was allegedly not followed. The selected person is learnt to have secured 10th rank in the written test conducted for the post.