BENGALURU: While there has been a rise in the number of PhD holders in the country, deterioration of quality has been a serious concern. A Parliamentary panel in 2015 had raised questions while seeking an evaluation report to understand why suitable candidates were hard to find for teaching posts.
It was learnt that in central universities across the country, almost 40 per cent teaching positions were vacant for want of 'quality' Ph.D holders.
In this backdrop, a professor in Karnataka University being accused of demanding monetary consideration while being a guide for PhD students had shocked the teaching fraternity.
She was later suspended after an inquiry and cases were filed before Lokayukta police. Another police complaint was filed for allegedly threatening students.
The suspended professor, Dr Noorjahan Ganihar, who was the dean of the post-graduate department of education, had approached the High Court seeking to quash the complaint against her. However, the high court on January 3 dismissed her petition.
The court felt that considering the nature of accusations made against the petitioner, who is a professor and guide, cannot be quashed in usual course without going into the merits/accusations made against her, more particularly, when the chargesheet is filed in a proceedings which is registered for the offence punishable under the provisions of Prevention of Corruption Act.
While rejecting the petition the court ordered that the inquiry ordered against her should be carried out with ‘full force’.
The professor had stated in her petition that complaints were filed based on misconception that she demanded money from students without any complaints to that effect. She had also argued that the records would disclose that it was the Registrar of the University who had lodged a complaint before the Karnataka Lokayukta Police alleging that there was monetary demand.
