Madurai: A public interest litigation has been filed in the Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court seeking cancellation of the doctoral degree awarded to a student who allegedly insulted Tamil Nadu Governor R.N. Ravi during the convocation ceremony at Manonmaniam Sundaranar University (MSU), Tirunelveli.

The petition, filed by Tiruchendur-based advocate Ramkumar Adhithan, claimed that PhD graduate Jean Joseph of Nagercoil violated convocation protocol on August 13 by refusing to receive her degree from the Governor, who is the Chancellor of the university, and instead collected it from Vice-Chancellor Chandrasekar.

According to the plea, the Controller of Examinations had instructed all candidates to receive their degree from the Chancellor, and the Governor had also gestured accordingly. However, the petitioner said the student deliberately avoided the Governor for “political reasons”.

Jean Joseph later told the media that she chose not to receive the degree from the Governor because “he has done nothing for Tamil” and that her husband held a position in the DMK. She reportedly added that the Higher Education Minister and the Vice-Chancellor were “more qualified” to hand over the degree.

Arguing that the incident amounted to a public insult to the Chancellor and that the Vice-Chancellor failed to enforce the University Act, the petitioner sought action against the Vice-Chancellor and annulment of the degree awarded to the student.

The petition came up before a Bench of Justices Anitha Sumanth and C. Kumarappan, which posted it for hearing next week to decide on its maintainability.