Plea In Madras High Court Against Condition Requiring Candidate To Possess 2-Year LLM For Ph.D Application At TNDALU

The matter was taken up by a Division Bench of Justices Anita Sumanth and Senthil Kumar Ramamoorthy on Thursday where it was admitted. In the meanwhile, the petitioner has been permitted to apply for a Ph.D at the University.

The petition by Suganya Jeba Sarojini, through Advocates M. Nirmalkumar, Adeeb Mohammed and T. Arivoli challenges the Ph.D Regulations in so far as it permits only Post Graduates with a "Two Years Master's Degree in law" to apply. Terming it as unreasonable and violative of Article 14 of the Constitution, the petitioner contends that in effect, the Tamil Nadu Dr. Ambedkar Law University by its Ph.D Regulations has invalidated a valid Masters degree for the purpose of admission to Ph.D programme.

It is averred that the stipulation classifies post graduates with a valid full time Master's Degree into those 'possessing a Two Year Master's degree in Law' and 'others' for the purpose of Ph.D admissions, which is violative of the right to equality.

Additionally, taking into account the fact that most universities in the country have have replaced their Two-Year LL.M. Programmes with the One-Year Programme following the UGC Guidelines of 2012, it is stated that the Tamil Nadu Br Ambedkar Law University has arbitrarily and unreasonably prevented candidates possessing a valid Master's Degree from applying for Ph.D admissions.