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| Friday, February 08, 2008
Court holds M.A. without foundation degree invalid
“Such a degree is not valid for any purpose, including
employment”
- “Unless one completes first degree of
three-year duration, he can’t join Master’s
course”
- “Film and Television Institute principal
obtained M.A. without any preceding formal education”
CHENNAI: A Master’s degree, obtained through the open
university system, without a foundation degree, or the basic
degree equivalent to a recognised degree, is invalid, the Madras
High Court has ruled.
Such a degree is not valid for any purpose, including employment,
it said.
A Division Bench of Justice P.K. Misra and Justice K.K. Sasidharan,
passing orders on two writ appeals and a writ petition, said
University Grants Commission (UGC) Regulations had made it clear
that “no person is eligible to appear for the M.A. examination
of the open university, unless such person had obtained the
first degree.”
It further said: “There is no doubt that UGC regulations
do not contemplate conferment of a Master’s degree through
the open university system unless a person has got the first
degree either as a formal student or under non-formal/distance
education system. It is, thus, apparent that conferment of Master’s
degree through the non-formal system or the open university
system is contemplated only when the student desirous of taking
such a degree has already obtained the first degree, namely,
the graduation degree.”
Referring to the first proviso to Regulation 2(2), the Bench
said unless a candidate successfully completed the first degree
course of three-year duration, he could not be eligible for
admission to the Master’s course. If a candidate had obtained
any Master’s degree, such a degree could not be termed
valid for any purpose, including employment.
“Various correspondence also indicate that even the persons,
who had obtained the first degree by not completing the three-year
degree course after Plus-Two, were required to undergo a bridge
course for one year before becoming eligible for being …
a candidate for M.A. examination of the open university system…There
is not even a single correspondence on record to indicate that
indirectly the UGC had ever approved allowing persons to appear
for M.A. examination, though such persons had not obtained the
first degree,” it said.
The matter relates to a writ petition filed against the appointment
of N. Ramesh as principal of Film and Television Institute of
Tamil Nadu. The appointment was challenged on the ground that
he had obtained M.A. from Annamalai University without any preceding
formal education. The State Government, in its counter-affidavit,
contended that as per an August 1997 order, a degree obtained
through the open university was equivalent to the degree obtained
in the regular stream for employment in a government department.
The UGC, which was impleaded as respondent as per the directions
of the Supreme Court, said as per the UGC (Minimum Standards
of Instructions for the grant of First Degree Through Non-formal/Distance
Education in the Faculties of Arts, Humanities, Fine Arts, Music,
Social Sciences, Commerce and Sciences) Regulations 1985, no
student who had not successfully pursued the first degree course
of three-year duration was eligible to seek admission to the
Master’s course.
The Bench said Mr. Ramesh was not eligible to be considered
for the post, as the M.A. degree obtained by him through the
open university system without a first degree was not valid.
Courtesy: The Hindu
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