Patna: Even as more than 1,000 scholars of the 107-year-old Patna University (PU) will be receiving their degrees at the annual convocation scheduled for Saturday, but there would be none to receive the coveted Doctor of Letters (DLitt) or Doctor of Science (DSc) degree on the occasion. The university won’t award Honoris Causa doctorate degree to any distinguished personality either at the convocation.
Until a few decades back, some scholars used to receive DLitt or DSc degree besides PhD degrees depending upon their work at the annual convocation of the university almost every year. But, not a single scholar has been awarded this degree by the university for the last several years.
In fact, the universities in Bihar, including PU, have stopped registering candidates for DLitt or DSc degree following an instruction from the chancellor’s secretariat about a decade ago, not to allow candidates undertake research leading to DLitt/DSc degree on the basis of old, out-dated statutes.
In view of the increasing demand from some teachers, the PU had constituted a five-member committee headed by then pro-vice-chancellor Dolly Sinha in 2018 to draft the revised statute. Finally, the university came out with the much-needed draft statute for the award of DLitt and DSc degree after getting it approved from its statutory bodies like academic council, syndicate and senate.
The draft statute was reportedly sent to the Raj Bhawan for getting the chancellor’s assent, but the present status is not known, said PU’s former vice-chancellor Ras Bihari Prasad Singh. Had the statute been approved by the competent authority, many scholars would have been awarded DLiit or DSc degree by now.
PU sources said that not a single scholar has been awarded either DLitt or DSc degree from the university after 2007.
So far as the award of honoris causa doctorate degree is concerned, PU officials do not remember that this degree was awarded to any individual in the last several decades. Even though several names were proposed by the academics at the syndicate meetings in the past, no unanimity could be achieved on a single name.
PU’s syndicate member S B Lall told the newspaper that the names of RJD supremo and former chief minister Lalu Prasad (2004-05), chief minister Nitish Kumar(2011) and some other politicians, including former union finance minister Yashwant Sinha, were proposed by the syndicate, but the horary degree could not be awarded to them owing to some controversies, he said.