Draft  Regulations for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.)

1. General:

1.1: These regulations shall be called the „Regulations for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy (or Ph.D. Regulations for short) and shall govern the Ph.D. programme of this University, and will follow UGC, Ph.D. Guideline of 2009.

1.2: The degree of Doctor of Philosophy shall be awarded to a candidate on the basis of original research work resulting in a significant advancement of knowledge.

1.3: Admission into the Ph.D programme shall be through an Admission Test excepting for candidates who are exempted from the Admission Test by these Regulations.

1.4: The Ph.D. programme shall consist of two parts: (1) Course Work and (2) Research Work for the Ph.D. degree. Part (2) can be undertaken by a candidate only after successful completion of Part (1) and registration for the Ph.D. degree. On completion of the research work a candidate shall submit to the University a thesis incorporating the results of the research.

2. Admission Test:

 2.1: Every year the University shall conduct an Admission Test for the Ph.D. programme after issuing appropriate notification. The Admission Test will consist of two parts: a written test and an interview. The candidates will be assessed on the basis of their performance in the two parts as a whole.

2.2: The Admission Tests for the Ph.D. programmes in the different subjects or interdisciplinary fields will be conducted by the respective Ph. D. Committees. (See Section 6 below.)

2.3: Candidates with NET/SET/GATE/M.Phil qualifications will be exempted from the Admission Test. Those candiates who wish to be registred through National Research Institution of  repute and received through centrally supervised tests would also be exempted from appearing in the Admission Test. These will be decided as a case by case basic.

2.4: The number of students to be admitted into the Ph.D. programme in a subject or an interdisciplinary field in a year will be decided on the basis of the average numberof students admitted in the previous few years adjusted for the growth in the number of students seeking admission.

2.5: National and state-level reservation policies will be adhered to in the matter of admission into the Ph.D. programme.

3. Course Work

3.1: Students admitted into the Ph.D. programme shall undertake course work for a period of one semester.

3.2: The course work will consist of four courses. Each course will carry 3 credits. The subject matters of the courses will be as follows:

Course I: Research Methodology

Course II: Computer Applications.

(The students will acquire familiarity with the application of two computer software programmes. They will be encouraged to learn the use of Open Source software. However, depending on the needs of the students the Ph.D. Committee may also permit them to learn the application of other types of software in fulfilment of the requirement of this course.)

Course III: Literature Review

 (This course will be oriented towards the research interests of the individual students. Each student will prepare a review of the research literature relating to the area of his or her interest in consultation with the teachers.)

Course IV: Lectures or Seminars by distinguished scholars

  (There will be six such lectures or seminars in this course.)

3.3: At the end of the Semester the performance of each student in the four courses will be evaluated.

4. Registration:

4.1: A candidate whose performance in the Course Work is considered to be satisfactory may apply for registration for the Ph.D. degree of the University in the form prescribed for the purpose along with a non-refundable registration fee as decided upon by the University.

4.2: The research work for the Ph.D. degree will be carried out either in the relevant department or interdisciplinary centre of the University or in a research institute recognised by the University for the purpose. In all cases if the research work requires the use of facilities at locations other than the place of research, the candidate may use them with the permission of the Supervisor or the Joint Supervisors.

4.3: Foreign students will be required to produce clearance (including research visa) from the Government of India and/or other appropriate authorities before registration is granted.

4.4: Every application for registration shall state the subject or the interdisciplinary field in which the candidate wishes to obtain the degree, the chosen area of specialisation, the proposed title of the research work, the name of the Supervisor or the names of the Joint Supervisors as well as the University Department or recognised research institute where the work will be carried out. The application shall be accompanied by six copies of a synopsis (of not more than 1000 words) of the proposed research work. The synopsis shall include the title of the research work, a short introduction, a brief review of the literature pertaining to the work and the plan of work and shall be duly countersigned by the Supervisor or the Joint Supervisors.

4.5: The proposed title of the work can be modified at a later stage, if necessary. For this purpose the candidate shall submit an application to the Vice-Chancellor duly forwarded by the Supervisor and the Convenor of the Ph.D. Committee concerned. However, such modification will not be permitted after submission of the Seminar Report by the Ph. D. Committee. (See Paragraph 7.3 below.)

4.6: An application for registration shall be considered by the relevant Ph.D. Committee at a meeting in the presence of the Supervisor (or at least one of the Joint Supervisors). The recommendation of the Ph.D. Committee will be forwarded to the Vice-Chancellor by the Convenor of the Committee for necessary orders. The candidate will be allowed to register for the Ph.D. programme if the vice-Chancellor so orders.

 4.7: If the Ph.D. Committee does not find it possible to make a positive recommendation to the Vice-Chancellor in this regard, the candidate may resubmit the application, ordinarily within three months after revision of the synopsis in the light of the suggestions made by the Ph.D. Committee.

 4.8: If the Ph.D. Committee does not recommend the application even after the revision, the Supervisor may request the Vice-Chancellor to place the matter before the concerned Faculty Council. The decision of the Faculty Council, taken in a meeting presided over by the Vice-Chancellor, shall be final in the matter.

4.9: Ordinarily a candidate will be registered for the Ph.D. degree in the subject in which the candidate has a Master‟s Degree. In case a candidate applies for registration in a different subject, the matter will be decided by the Ph.D. Committee in the subject in which the candidate desires to be registered.

4.10: In all cases the date of registration shall be deemed to be the date of approval of the registration by the Vice-Chancellor. A registration shall remain valid for a period of five years. In case of failure to submit the thesis within the stipulated time, the candidate will have to apply for re-registration before the expiry of the validity of the existing registration. Ordinarily, re-registration will be permitted only once. However, re-registered candidates will be exempted from those procedural requirements which were fulfilled under the previous registration.

5. Supervision:

5.1: Ordinarily the research work for the Ph.D. degree will be carried out under the guidance of a Supervisor. However, a Ph.D. Committee may recommend two supervisors for a candidate if it considers it fit to do so. In this case the supervisors will be designated as Joint Supervisors. Under exceptional circumstances the Vice- Chancellor may, in consultation with the relevant Ph.D. Committee, allow a candidate to carry out the research independently.

5.2: The appointment of a second supervisor may also be made after registration under one supervisor. For this purpose the candidate will have to apply to the Ph.D. Committee within one year of the date of registration. The application will have to be forwarded by the original supervisor. This will not affect the validity of the date of registration.

5.3: If a change of Supervisor or of one of the Joint Supervisors is considered to be necessary for any reason, the candidate may apply to the Ph.D. Committee concerned (through the proposed Supervisor or Joint Supervisor) for the purpose within one year from the date of registration. However, in case the reason for the proposed change is continuous non-availability of the Supervisor or of a Joint Supervisor, this time limit of one year may be relaxed. The Convenor of the Ph.D. Committee will forward the application along with the recommendation of the Committee to the Vice-Chancellor for necessary orders. In such cases, if the research work is at a sufficiently advanced stage, the Vice-Chancellor may also allow the candidate to complete the rest of the work and submit the thesis independently i.e. without any supervisor.

5.4: Each Ph.D. Committee shall prepare and maintain a list of approved Supervisors. Additions and alterations to the list may be made whenever necessary. Supervisors and Joint Supervisors shall be appointed from this list. All whole-time, re-employed and retired whole-time teachers of this University with research work to their creditare entitled to be enlisted as Supervisors or Joint Supervisors. Part-time teachers of this University as well as whole-time and retired teachers (or other academic staff) of other Universities or research institutes with records of research as evidenced by academic publications may also be considered for inclusion in the list.

5.5: In case of joint supervision at least one of the two Joint Supervisors shall be a whole-time or a re-employed or a retired teacher of this University.

5.6: Ordinarily a person will not be the Supervisor or a Joint Supervisor for more than ten candidates .

 5.7: All Ph.D. Committees shall send their lists of approved supervisors to the Registrar and shall keep the Registrar informed of the additions and alterations made to the lists from time to time.

6: Ph.D. Committee:

6.1: The Ph.D. programme of the University will be monitored by the relevant Faculty Council with the help of the Ph.D. Committees. There shall be a Ph.D. Committee in each subject or inter-disciplinary field in which the University desires to conduct a Ph.D. programme.

6.2: The Vice-Chancellor shall constitute the Ph.D. Committees in consultation with the Department Committees.

6.3: A Ph.D. Committee shall consist of five experts in the relevant field. Of them three shall be whole-time teachers of the relevant subject in the University with the rank of Professor or Associate Professor / Reader. (If the number of such teachers in a Department is less than three, the Vice-Chancellor may consider the names of whole- time teachers with the rank of Assistant Professor / Lecturer in the Department or of whole-time teachers in other Departments of the University for the purpose.) The other two members of a Ph.D. Committee shall be external experts.

6.4: If the Head of a Department is not a member of the Ph.D. Committee for the relevant subject by virtue of Paragraph 6.3 above, he or she shall be a permanent invitee to all meetings of the Ph.D. Committee.

6.5: The Vice-Chancellor shall nominate one of the members who are internal to the University as the Convenor of the Ph.D. Committee.

6.6: The tenure of a Ph.D. Committee shall be four years unless otherwise decided by the Vice-Chancellor.

6.7: A Ph.D. Committee will ordinarily meet at least once in 3 months except under the circumstances in which there is no pending matter before the Committee.

6.8: Records of resolutions adopted at meetings of the Committee will be maintained by the Convenor with secretarial help provided by the University.

7: Submission and Evaluation

7.1: Ordinarily a candidate will work on the preparation of the Ph.D. thesis for a minimum period of two years after the date of registration. In exceptional case the Vice-Chancellor may reduce the period on the advice of the Ph.D. Committee.

7.2: At least six months before the submission of the thesis, the candidate shall submit to the Convenor of the Ph.D. Committee six copies of a summary of the research work (preferably within 5000 words) duly forwarded by the Supervisor or the Joint Supervisors as the case may be. The candidate shall present the work in a public seminar. The seminar shall be held within one month after the candidate submits the summary of the work. The Convenor shall circulate a notice of the seminar among all teachers of the Department. The notice is also to be put up on the Notice Board of the Department and may also be sent to Heads of other relevant Departments. The Convenor shall make copies of the summary of the work available to the members of the Ph.D. Committee and the Head of the Department at least fifteen days before the Seminar.

7.2a Ordinarily the candidates shall publish their work in at least one peer-reviewed journal unless the council gives exemption in some specific case.

7.3: Immediately after the seminar the Convenor shall send a report (in the form prescribed for the purpose) to the University on the performance of the candidate in the Seminar. The Report must also be signed by the Supervisor (or the Joint Supervisors) and the members of the Ph.D. Committee who were present at the Seminar. A copy of the Report is to be provided to the candidate.

7.4: If the report states that the performance of the candidate at the seminar was satisfactory, the candidate shall be allowed to submit the thesis subject to 7.1 above.

7.5: Otherwise, the candidate will be required to re-appear at a public seminar on a date to be decided by the Convenor in consultation with the candidate and with the Supervisor or the Joint Supervisors.

7.6: The evaluation of a thesis will consist of two parts: examination of the thesis and a viva voce.

7.7: As soon as possible after a public seminar in which the candidate is considered to have performed satisfactorily and in any case not later than one month after such a seminar, the Convenor of the relevant Ph.D. Committee shall convene a meeting of the Committee for the purpose of finalising a list of six examiners for the thesis as well as a list of three experts for the viva voce. The Supervisor or the Joint Supervisors shall be invited to attend the meeting. The Convenor shall send the two lists to the Registrar immediately after the meeting.

7.8: The Vice-Chancellor shall appoint two external examiners of the thesis (from the list of six names forwarded by the Convenor) and one external expert for the viva voce (from the list of three names forwarded by the Convenor). The Supervisor (or the Joint Supervisors as the case may be) shall also be appointed both as examiners and viva voce experts.

 7.9: The candidate shall submit four (five if there are Joint Supervisors) type-written or printed copies of the thesis along with an electronic version (CD in pdf format) within the time period of validity of the registration. The candidate shall also deposit a fee as decided upon by the University together with a certificate from the Supervisor (or the Joint Supervisors) regarding the originality and the quality of the work reported in the thesis as well as attested copies of all necessary documents as specified by the University. The candidate may also submit in support of the thesis the contents of any work which may have been previously published by him or her. The candidate shall not submit any work for which a degree or distinction has been conferred on the candidate by this or any other University. However, the candidate may incorporate such work in the thesis provided that the thesis covers a substantially wider area and that a clear statement of the work so incorporated is given.

7.10: The examiners shall be requested to send their reports preferably also in electronic mode within three months. They shall be allowed to retain the copies of the thesis for their own records. The reports are to state clearly whether the thesis is recommended for the award of the degree or not and, if it is not recommended, whether it can be considered for favourable recommendation after it is suitably modified. The external examiners are to be requested to send their reports electronically.

7.11: If both the external examiners express their inability to recommend the thesis for award of the Ph.D. degree, the Vice-Chancellor may permit the candidate to resubmit the thesis after making suitable changes in it (in the hard copies as well as in the electronic version) on payment of the usual submission fee after at least six months but within two years. The resubmitted thesis may be sent to the same set of examiners as before. However, in this case the Vice-Chancellor may also request the Ph.D. Committee to prepare a fresh list of prospective examiners and to forward them to the Registrar as in Paragraph 7.7 above.

7.12: If one of the two external examiners recommends the thesis for the award of the degree while the other does not, the Vice-Chancellor may consider the appointment of a third external examiner either from the existing list of examiners or from a fresh list of examiners sought from the Ph.D. Committee for the purpose. If the third external examiner does not recommend the thesis, the candidate shall have the option of resubmission as described in Paragraph 7.11 above.

8. Viva Voce

8.1: If both the external examiners recommend the thesis, or if one of them does while the other does not but the third external examiner recommends it, the candidate shall be asked to appear for the viva voce. Copies of the reports of all the examiners will be sent to the candidate as well as to all the viva voce experts well in advance of the viva voce.

8.2: The viva voce is to be conducted by the Supervisor or the Joint Supervisors and the external expert appointed for the purpose.

8.3: The viva voce experts will submit a joint report to the Registrar on the performance of the candidate at the viva voce, clearly stating whether the candidate deserves to be awarded the Ph.D. degree. If the candidate is not considered to deserve the degree, the Vice-Chancellor may allow him or her to re-appear at a viva voce after a period of three months from the date of the first viva voce.

9. Award of the Degree:

9.1: If the report of the viva voce experts states that the candidate deserves to be awarded the Ph.D. degree, the Vice-Chancellor shall make a recommendation to that effect to the Syndicate. If the Syndicate accepts the recommendation, the Registrar shall write a letter to the candidate stating that he or she has been admitted to the Ph.D. degree of the University.

9.2: A certificate in the following format under the seal of the University and signed by the Vice-Chancellor shall be issued to the candidate: “This is to certify that (name of the awardee) obtained the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in (name of the subject) under the Faculty of (name of the Faculty) of this University in the year (year of admittance to the Degree).”

9.3: A copy of the thesis accepted for award of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, incorporating all necessary corrections and modifications, shall be retained in the University Library.

9.4: The University shall send the electronic version of the thesis (see Paragraphs 7.9 above) in its final form to the UGC within a month after the candidate is admitted to the degree.