READ ALSO:

This year, IITs will admit students with even 6% in entrance exam

READ ALSO:

Congress leader assails govt over IIT autonomy

NEW DELHI: The IIT-Delhi senate has rebuffed the HRD ministry 's communication to the institute asking it to reconsider its decision cancelling the admission of a part-time PhD student in humanities who was found to have concealed facts regarding her work experience.Three out of six deans at the IIT threatened to resign protesting against the ministry's "interference" in academic matters. The deans felt that the petition, filed on behalf of the applicant Aleesha Tangri by her father Rajeev Tangri, should have been referred by the secretary, higher education, to the IIT director instead of the senate which is responsible for maintaining academic standards.Earlier, the Prime Minister's Office had transferred Rajeev Tangri's petition to the HRD ministry for suitable action.But the ministry in its letter dated September 24 asked IIT to put the matter before its Board of Governors for "suitable verification/redressal."The opinion at the Senate meeting is understood to have been divided but ultimately by a majority decided to not revise the cancellation of Aleesha Tangri's admission. Calling the reference an outright interference by the HRD ministry in academic matters, many in the Senate said the decision to cancel the admission was taken after due process.Some others felt that since IIT had not been specific about the nature of work experience, she should be given a chance. But the majority opinion was that work experience cannot be concurrent with a full-time academic degree as seemed to be case with regard to the applicant.On scrutiny of Aleesha's documents it was found that she had submitted her work experience certificate dated December 2, 2014 mentioning that she had been working with one M/S Masstek Consultants Pvt. Ltd as HRD consultant since September, 2009.But her records showed that she was a full-time student of Jesus & Mary College pursuing B.A in Sociology from 2009 to 2012. She then joined JNU from 2012 to 2014. IIT said, "There appears an apparent contradiction in particular when the experience certificate does not mention her employment status as full-time or part-time amounts to concealment of facts; since fulfillment of admission requirement is full-time working experience."When Aleesha was issued a show cause notice she replied that she worked in her father's company after college hours. In fact, her father also pointed this out in his petition to the PMO. In his petition, the father had also alleged that Aleesha was being harassed by her supervisor.